Jack's Bitter Smile
by dustin at night
Summary: The commander faces the oncoming Reapers, but may not be able to save another touched by the Prothean visions. Finally past fluff and character building and into main story, enjoy.
1. Into to our chaos

Jack was staring down into the bowels of the ship, mostly just killing time. She'd finished cleaning up from her trip to Horizon about a hour ago and now was just waiting for most of the cheer squad to give Shepard a breath before stomping up to him and slugging him in the arm for a job well done. She still generally didn't give a shit about letting people know they'd done well. For her, she assumed they knew if she didn't blow their head off at the end of the day, well... that's about as good as things got with her.

Still, she'd noticed that Shepard had started to come down after a mission nearly every time they went out. He said he was just relaxing and avoiding the bunch, Tali, Miranda, Kelly, even that new Goto girl, all of whom would try to "ooh" and "ah" over every moment of a retelling as Shepard tried to get by with the barest level of commitment or detail. Finally after a week of him hoping down after missions, always rushing down to Jack's hole to breath undisturbed she finally decided she should give this who "humanity" thing a chance, seeing as Shepard seemed to sweat the stuff and he was about the only one bad ass enough to not be called a pussy for it. So as he came down the stairs in to her hidey-hole, Jack grabbed a nearby pad and pitched it at his head.

As Shepard was mostly observing the near invisible stairs as he descended into the beast's belly, he didn't notice the pad until it had rebounded off his left ear and made him miss a step, mostly sliding down the last 3 steps in a heap.  
"What the fuck, Jack!" Seeing him fall, she surprisingly had a moment of discord at seeing him get hurt, which she quickly shoved in a corner to bitch and moan so she could begin laughing her ass off at the famed spectre with all the pride and nobility of a high school-er having dropped his books in the middle of the hall.

Seeing the convict huddled in a ball on her bed cackling at his pain, it kinda reminded him of his sister as she'd drag their mother back to his room hoping to get him caught with a girl, or her spreading across the net movies of his head above a shower curtain as he belted out poor renditions of pop songs while he was "supposedly" alone. Sneaky bitch. Still, the sight of her curled over her knees staring at him as tears of amusement began to leak was pretty disconcerting. John had grown to appreciate Jack's beauty in what he personally felt was the only way possible, silently and without comment. Seeing her teeth in a manner other than a snarl or telling him to fuck off was always a treat, and he wasn't stupid enough to point it out for the galaxy, no,no, he rather liked his head staying attached.

"Jack, please tell me you consider April Fool's Day beneath you." Shepard said, lifting his eyebrows at the end. Jack paused for a moment, before cocking her head with a smirk,"There's fools everywhere we go, dumbass, why wait for one day." "Because it's the only day I let the crew get away with murder.' replied Shepard before pausing himself,"figuratively speaking." he corrected.

Seeing him actually start to want to talk was almost a transformative shift as Shepard's eyes finally widened from the perpetual facade of boredom Jack had seen him wear in literally every vid that'd spread like wildfire across the nets since his death. Telling off the Council; check, bored and irritated; calmly walking up and stabbing some random mechanic in the back, like he was filling out tax claim forms. While Jack still had questions concerning that whole _Lazarus _story, and she'd never trust the Cerberus whore to speak the truth without..encouragement, she figured him for a open book and was surprised at the change.

Jack seemed to take his attempt at socializing almost as a game, first looking him over as though a holo-interface was floating behind his head flashing "TEMPTING!" For a second, Shepard was pulled back to his first encounter with Aria, she'd had similar looks, but had quickly lost interest when both Tali and Miranda pitched a tantrum and almost got them thrown off the station. While slightly amused with Tali, he couldn't exactly just punish the new comer with aspirations of ingratiating herself in Shepard's inner circle without reprimanding his almost-kid sister. So, after 3 hours of cleaning the inner cooling rods for the drive core for Miranda, and 2 days without net access for Tali, the lesson was taught thoroughly.

Still, from Jack, it wasn't completely. totally creepy like the sisterhood hunting Shepard's pants. "Well, let's hear your great story, I'm totally _psyched_ to hear about you mooning some merc before popping him.' The way she pitched her voice when she said psyched forced a snort from her audience, bringing her smile back for a moment before quickly tucking itself into a little lift of the right side of her mouth.

"Well, there was the party wherein Joker ended up puking on Wrex, Wrex in a haze declared his undying love for all asari before collapsing on Jeff and breaking his right arm...huh, same place I did, anyways, and of course, where Tali mooned the council." Jack looked at him during his litany of absurd, her eyes seeming to pop out at the last. "What the hell, seriously, your fucking with me, seriously?!" Shepard paused for effect, "Serious."

Jack paused for a second, jilted for a moment. Some people, she'd believe nothing but that they'd eventually screw her over, and thus was fully justified in a preemptive screwing. Shepard on the other hand, had lied directly to the Council and C-Sec and every other institution since she'd come aboard, creating a new identity for her as a rescued covert operative and giving her a out to anywhere in the galaxy, all in addition to handing her full access to the ship's databases as soon as she'd walked in. So he deserved a little faith, but..

"Apparently some devious fiend, surely driven manic after weeks confined with soldiers and professional killers in a tiny boat at the mercy of plots and conspiracies of galactic concern, decided to spike the punch. After careful research, they'd likely realized that the only safe addition to he pot would be Batarian Fire Piss." Shepard waited while Jack seemed to stare at his forehead. "Yeah, and.." Jack hinted.

"Oh, yeah, you might not know, sorry. About nine years ago there was a incident on a mining colony where the liquid reclamation tanks leaked most of the colony's supplies before it was sealed. The whole place was communal resourced, so when everyone was given their share, the non-humans and humans alike shared in the few bottles of spirits while waiting for resupply. While some had unintended and admittedly horrific consequences in the case of the Asari and tequila, it was discovered the all species could safely tolerate the drink, even Turians and Quarians as the active components that might trigger a response was killed off in the initial casking process. If it also didn't lead to horrible cramps and," Shepard quirked his nose,"other less pleasant aftereffects in the non-Batarian drinkers, it'd probably be served on the Citadel instead being outlawed in three-quarters of the citadel governments. "

Jack just stared at him, again. Taking a moment to relax slightly against the bulkhead, he stared to let his eyes wander over her cubbyhole. 'Hey, quit spacing!" Snapping his eyes back, he was slightly shocked by her enraged look. "That how you treat your friends, people who bled for you." Snapping up, she started to walk up to him, stopping as he quickly put his hand up."Hey, hang on now, I'll admit, not funny from that side, but you didn't see what they did to me."

AN: And away we go.. Got any good ideas for how they tossed Shepard? Oh, and it's just Shepard for now. It might be explained later if I get deep into character dev.


	2. The day will only get worse from here

The day had started much as the previous week's days had, with someone banging on his locked cabin door. It wouldn't even normally be a issue; Shepard would be awake before six and wait for the layabouts to wake up for an hour. Sometimes he amused himself in his moments alone by drawing faces on the sleeper pod windows, the look from Garrus as he'd woken to a poorly sketched Elcor blowing kisses at him, he lived for that kind of entertainment.

So it was all generally well and good to interrupt the commander who was most likely watching cartoons or the news and waiting for someone to annoy, except for the late night party celebrating their surviving the awards ceremony lead by that tool, Udina. The fact that the drab affair had been interrupted by biotic pranksters levitating a swimming pool sized globe of water from the lake to douse the pontificating jerk was definitely the highlight of the event, but still, 4 hours sitting in a crappy folding chair listening to politicians wax on about courage and valor, then sweeping back to their cushy chair at the corner of "no" and "fucking where", it'd wear a Krogan into self castration. Two hours in and his ass began a minor war with his lower back as to who had the worst positioning in this battle.

So it was after a long day of listening to people try to poet up some speech about a ton of people dying and watching the councilors never even flinch at the repeated usage of "just in time", that Shepard had spent the night sampling liqueurs at the local pub, sharing stories with Wrex and Ash, getting hammered in a drinking game against Joker, and then..Well even though it kinda fades into flashes of yelling and laughing after that, it seemed like he had a decent time of it.

The pounding started again and it felt as though someone was whipping his eyebrows with a red hot poker. "Enough, unless you want to discover the inventive uses of partial stasis and the myriad methods of punishment available to someone with cryoblast, I'd recommend giving me a couple of minutes." Hearing the pounding stop for a moment, Shepard started to lift himself when a spike of pain through his head made him drop back to his mattress with a thump. "Fuuuck." Shepard drew out with a hiss. Trying again, he successfully exited from the bed in a stumbling roll. Slowly reaching the door and adjusting the dial interface next to the door to the lowest illumination, he whispered,"Lights." Feeling his retinas attempt to detach and hide in his butt crack was a new level of low, and Shepard took a second to reflect, realizing he'd never experienced after leave pains so roughly in his life. He shoved his weak and bitching mindset in the corner for a good needling later, and switched to he commander face, though slightly haggard.

One last moment to brace himself, Shepard opened the door to see 2 rather large and well armored C-Sec agents point their weapons at him. Taking another moment to curse his creator, Shepard asked,"What up?" Barely a millisecond passed before both each grabbed a arm and pulled Shepard to the ground, one of the helmeted bastards leaning on his back while his partner reached around and secured his hands in biotic damper cuffs. Refusing to speak or even allow him to speak, Shepard was pulled along up the stair and past his bleary eyed but obviously shocked crew. He was in the airlock less than 40 seconds after opening his cabin door and had barely had time to jerk a hasty but calming head shake to still his ground crew as he was dragged out. He knew, no matter the cause, having any of his crew attempt to interfere would only cause headaches down the line. Much like everything else swung his way, the only chance to keep in the good graces of the council, the Alliance, and the public in general was to be seen as more politician than trained killer who got lucky at Torfan.

-.

The only problem with the citadel was the crowds, thought Shepard as he was lead into the station for processing. Knowing his status would prevent the worst of annoyances and that he could legally walk out whenever he wanted, he decided to endure with good grace while waiting for the other shoe to drop. Thus he stood at the back of a line at least 40 people and assorted aliens long, all of whom where hopping or twitching in mute frustration while each's handler stood stock still in line beside the accused. After 2 and a half hours waiting, wherein his military parade experience gave him the ability to just tune out of the whole process for the most part, Shepard was lead to the back office with a dismissive wave from the clerk, and cuffed to a interrogation table.

After another hour of waiting and listening the the hum and whine of cheap station air handling recycling the same air for the millionth time, a burly Volus waddled in the door wearing a crooked blue C-Sec armband around his head. While loose enough that it swung around the enviro-suited alien, Shepard imagined it was a joking concession to Turian official who demanded all parties keep identification in the case of attack or inspection. The Volus barely acknowledged Shepard's presence other than to hand him a manila file to hold as he hoped into the opposite chair. As he finally reached high enough to flip his hips into the seat, Shepard couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of his legs kicking futilely in the air as he situated himself. Finally stable, the Volus held out his hand imperiously for the folder which Shepard handed over magnanimously. "Guess he still gets a bit irritable about the lack of amenities for people his size," thought Shepard as he let the alien start to nonchalantly poke through the file making the occasional snort or whine as he seemed across something interesting.

After another few minutes of the Volus flipping actual paper, something usually mocked for it's inefficient usage of resources, and Shepard trying to remember the words to a kid's entertainment vid, the Volus announced himself. "It's in many ways a honor to meet you. Not many could have secreted away on a classified ship, and taken out the most revered spectre of our age. Certainly it's a point on your _resume._" The folder slapped against the table like using the human word was a irritation to him. "Some might even say it was heroic, but really did you think you'd get away with it?!"His statement had started as a slight whisper only to almost end at a yell before the Volus could stop himself and seem to settle a bit within himself as he tried to calm down.

"Dude, he was a dick and a coward, why the hell would you give a shit?" His laid back response and flippant gestures made the alien jerk as if struck, before he quickly jerked his shoulders up and started to screech "Coward, you piece of crap ape, you killed the only good person to ever stand for Vol-clan, hell..."with a slight pause, the Volus jerked his arm to his back and whipped out a fairly impressive hand cannon,"I should execute you in the most painful way imaginable even dreaming of hurting him. Still..", the Volus stood in his chair, the handgun lackadaisically switching between aiming at his head and navel,"I'd rather enjoy the years of torture and vengeance nearly every council race will want to suffer on your ass." With that the Volus jerked his hand and pulled the trigger, the micropellet tearing through Shepard's unarmored shoulder and dropping the soldier to the ground.

"Still, can't just walk away saying I never put a mark on the man who killed Shepard."

Clinging to consciousnesses and now thoroughly done with the idea of seeing what was going on, Shepard paused as his shock addled mind processed what'd been said,"Wait, fuck, what? Who killed me?"

AN: Still working on the details of Shepard's forgotten excesses, but knew this is how he'd be starting it out. Since I've gotten a comment about it, I guess I should explain that I write in a stream of consciousness, usually, so when I read back over it, I'll catch myself automatically filling in the missing places. Hopefully I'll get a beta reader in the future who can preview these, but until then, feel free to point out any problems, as I'd rather be embarrassed and fix it than (be) ignorant and being a irritating writer to read. Thanks to Taupe Two for pointing it out.


	3. Faces in the mirror

"So they called C-Sec in to arrest a spectre killer on the spectre's own ship, and they never even considered double checking the killer against, well hell, anything, even a can of Tupari would probably have your pretty boy face on it!" Jack stood back from her stance, her her cocked in confusion as though she was playing a mental word game and being unhappy about where it was leading her. Understandable as "fuck" hardly rhymes with "torture" or "bitch".

As she was no longer humming like a early model holo-interface or having iridescent arcs traveling her skin, Shepard went back to leaning against the bulkhead, and wondering deep thoughts like, would Jack ever let him bring down an extra chair. "Shepard?" Snapping back, he noticed Jack had resumed her seat on her bed, her thin knees hooked under her chin as she eyed him with those irresistible eyes. Shepard quickly shifted his gaze to the back wall of her home before letting his eyes wander the perimeter. He'd noticed early in their association that any scrutiny would quickly lead to being ordered to clear the hell out, possibly with the chance of biotically strewn debris in his wake.

"Stop fucking zoning out and finish the damn story, dumbass!" "Oh, yeah, got distracted, and umm.." seeing his eyes flutter around the room without ever looking directly at her, Jack had a pretty good inkling of what had distracted him, but had decided that that was the only thing she'd let him get away with. Krogan boy walking in and eyeing her would end with either one orb of the boy's quad strung around her neck on a leather strap, or the lower belly of the ship suddenly decompressing as a biotic nova simply removed the whole bottom level from the ship. Shepard however knew not to push the opportunity, smart.

"Whatever, just fucking finish, or I'll get bored and decide to rub one out." Upon hearing her words, Shepard's head jerked back to Jack so quick that a pop like a knuckle cracking was hear by Jack. "Oww, Jesus fucking, damn it!" cried Shepard as he let his back slide down the bulkhead and let him settle in a crouch on the floor. Rubbing his suddenly red neck and ducking his very flushed face, Shepard mumbled, "So umm, it turned out Tali and Garrus had teamed up to hack the C-Sec databases and had written up specific instructions for the detaining officers, though they'd never considered the idea of a vengeful former associate winging me in the interrogation." Shepard had poured out the response in a half second as he jerked himself up and started to make the quickest dignified escape he could while not directly looking at her. "Well, see ya, work to do, Mercs to save, I mean kill."

With that, Shepard was already at the u-turn in the stairs and just about hopped the last 3 steps in his haste. Seeing the brazen soldier turn tail and flee left Jack staring with her mouth slack jawed. She's seen him literally tell hundred story tall monster to "fuck off and die" while looking classic Shepard-bored. She'd heard the conversation upstairs as Shepard had calmly let the Quarian down, where at the end the kid had been beaming and cheerful as ever despite being turned down by her idol. It was hard to compare that to the person who'd run like a 2nd rate shoplifter. Deciding to not burn the only relationship she'd thought worthwhile on the ship, Jack started to walk to the stairs before slowing to a halt.

For the first time in her life, free or otherwise, she didn't immediately want to force the issue, call him a pussy, and demand him to talk to her. She took a second to consider what she said, it was a new experience as she hadn't within memory ever reflected on a conversation after the fact before. Even though she could remember ever inflection and nuance to Shepard's side of the story, she couldn't even guess at her's, as though even in her own mind her words were worthless. Think hard, her lips compressed into a harsh line, Jack could only remember a few expletives, saying stuff just to rag on Shepard, but nothing in particular could stand out and let her know what made him freak.

Knowing the issue would either keep her down in her bunk for days as she went back and forth over the whole thing or simply leave the rest of the mission with her as the ship's pariah, well..more so, and not willing to chance the rest of her voyage on the ship alone without Shepard stopping by, Jack was surprised at the sudden hurt that developed in her chest at the thought. Thinking it to be hunger for a second, she jerked as the pain momentarily ebbed and immediately returned as she dismissed the hunger notion. It was Shepard, he was making her ache and she couldn't even point out why she felt something for anyone, or why that one would run away so suddenly. Looking at the stairwell Shepard had almost flown up, Jack muttered a despondent "Fuck." before turning and laying down on her bed.

_.

Shepard stood stock still at the galaxy map, staring ahead without seeing the ship before him. Kelly had noticed Shepard looked agitated as he'd jerkily walked off the elevator and had walked up to star at the holographic map wordlessly. He'd been standing there a few minutes before the elevator chimed again. Assuming it to be Miranda or Tali, both of whom seemed to have unerringly knowledge of when Shepard needed to vent. Kelly started smirking a little at the romantic notions, making sure to keep her head down to provide what little privacy the CIC of a warship could. Nothing could prevent her head from jerking back as someone grabbed the back of her uniform and pulled her off her small pedestal and towards the elevator. Seeing Shepard spin around, jerk and nod indifferently, Kelly could see Shepard turning back to the map with his head down as she was pulled with her heels skipping and stumbling to keep balance, the doors closing on his stiff ram rod straight form. Being let go, Kelly whirled around to give her assailant a piece of her mind before halting, the sight of Jack holding herself tight against the side walls of the elevator, hands and eyes both twitching back and forth in signs of clear aggravation and possibly fright.

"Jack.." Kelly started, before Jack held up a hand in warning and seemed to calm as she settled in to a plan. "Not now, wait until we're back to my ce..my room." Hearing the slip, Kelly knew that something had changed in the tightly coiled former convict. It had been a trying two months of complete stone walling from Jack as she'd tried to get her to open up to either her or someone on the crew. Remembering the look Shepard had given as he'd turned around, nervous and wired, Kelly couldn't help a small smile developing. Despite the obvious attempts by several of the team, Shepard's often glib and minimal answers to any socialization had left Kelly wondering if he either had a secret boyfriend or girlfriend to distract him, or if he had been damaged by his rather recent rebirth. Seeing the Jack looking equally as discomfited however, was definitely not a flicker of possibility in Kelly's mind previously, and she felt herself swept along in new considerations of mood and crew dynamics in light of the new paradigm.

"Quit with the kittens and daisy fantasy, Red, I can see little pink hearts floating out of your ears and it's already pissing me off." snapped Jack as she noticed Kelly's eyes glaze over and a giant smile stretch across her face. Coming back to the moment, Kelly decided to fix first their relationship before moving onto the truly dangerous territory. "Jack, do you know why people have to take a test with a living person before receiving their license to drive? Not, I mean, having someone observe; but why does it have to be a actual person and not some complex VI monitoring system?" Thrown for a bit by the sudden shift from fantasy dream barbie to strong voiced authoritative Kelly, Jack just answered without thinking, "Huh, I don't know, who gives a shit?"

"Other people, Jack. You see a VI couldn't be told to monitor the person's physical response to agitation or shifting conditions, and would allow a person who was drunk or emotionally unstable as happily as VI driver interface. Testing and eye checks are easy for a automated pass/fail test, but people are more like picking a unfamiliar lock, they take observation, guesswork, and persistence in the face of, well..someone like you." Upon hearing the last, Jack's face started to tense and she'd just started to retort, when Kelly looked her in the eyes like a stranger, gone was the bubbly infatuated pin up doll, now she was the observant professional that could break down causal factors from a hundred unknown conflicts just from a sentence, she stared back at Jack with confidence and compassion, and Jack felt herself suddenly deflate at the measured look.

"Jack, we could play footsie like I have to do with every patient, and I'll admit I'd probably enjoy the challenge particularly with you, but it's not a game and you need help, clearly. So, I'm making a new playbook for you to work through and in the end, maybe you'll find what your missing. Hell, it ultimately wouldn't even have to be me, might even help if it wasn't, but I'm pretty sure suggesting finding someone else you could trust would be just my own hesitation and I'm not willing to give up if it means nothing gets resolved." Jack looked stymied at the strong and logical development from Kelly, her words that suddenly seemed not like glass irritants wedged in her eyelids, but as a calming metronome of back and forth plan towards.. something, something that might not suck. Biting her lower lip, she held back and just as Kelly looked to start again, Jack whispered, "Just wait until we're at my bunk, please."


	4. Small admissions

"I want to kill someone, but I can't which is really making me want to kill someone, so I'm having a really shitty day. Sit down over there." Jack had barreled out of the elevator with Kelly having to skip along to keep up with her rigid lockstep, Jack threw out the statement the moment her stubbly head was beneath the deck plating. She whipped a hand out in a rapid gesture to the bed, before climbing up on the piping at the head of her bed. It was a waste regulator pipe, and while Jack didn't know nor would she have wanted to know it's function, it was always at a few degrees below ship norm. She couldn't say why, but the cool smooth metal seemed more comfortable.

Kelly observed most of this is a flurry as she stood at the stairs of Jack's home letting her eyes adjust to the gloomy dark. At the near prophetic insistence of her commander upon Jack's arrival, Kelly had limited her attempts to interact to ten word poster pick me up phrases of no substance, and had never, ever let it be revealed that she was maintaining a file for Cerberus. Thus it was Kelly's first time actually seeing the convict in her home. Trying hard to maintain focus and keep her expressions neutral, Kelly quickly tried to assess what little she could before she was thrown into the middle of the crisis.

Jack's room had no bearing on Jack, having been chosen sight unseen, but Kelly couldn't help but think it had described her private observations of Jack perfectly. Walls curved in but not at ideal angles, it lent itself less to a fortified outlook than one being under the weight of the world. The metal piping formed a metal nest that housed a meager cot, a single bright light casting a spotlight on the occupant's usual spot, shadowed by a dark periphery lit in machine glow. Even the glow of the walls was eerily reminiscent of the glow from Sovereign. Kelly had been at the Presidium, barely making it to the escape tunnel, but the glow from it's beam weapons tearing though the Alliance defenders had spotted her vision as if she'd stared at the sun directly.

Shaking her head to push her mind from the terrifying moments, Kelly focused on the folded form staring at her across the room. "Well, Jack, first thing's first, what do you do when you can't kill someone? Assuming it's come up before." Kelly's peppy voice made the the sudden seriousness of her eyes almost too much for Jack, who suddenly snapped her fingers close to the therapist nose making her head snap back a few inches in surprise "Relax, Red, I dragged you down here because I ain't going to kill someone, but you gotta give me something, a mantra or some yoga-shit way to stop me from wanting to, cause sometimes it takes over before I can stop it and I can't do that to him, I mean you, you know, the ship and shit."

Kelly quickly fought herself from even flinching at the admission, knowing even the slightest touch of approval or disapproval would likely as not finish their initial session with a glibly yelled, "Get the fuck out!" "Jack, it's good you have something you want inspire you, but it's also you draw strength from." Seeing the the convict's eyes start to glaze, Kelly quickly rushed on. 'There's nothing I can give, no secret formula for changing you that would work without you making it work."

"So why the hell do people ever come to you?" Jack retorted. Kelly slightly grinned at the humor of the situation, even Jack smirking a little as she considered her current predicament. "Because some people can ignore the bull idea of glib phrases actually changing lives because they want to change hard enough. The people I help are really helping themselves. If I do anything really, it's to help them spot what things in their lives cause their difficulties and either help them avoid them or hopefully develop a new way of perceiving that issue."

Seeing her patient begin to tune out, Kelly tried again. "For example, a surgeon I treated two years ago for drug abuse. He'd been addicted to red sand in his early years as a Alliance marine. Due to a incident wherein he was derelict on duty, he finally found the resolve to quit but also developed crippling PTSD. Over the course of his treatment, not only did we work on mental associations and exercises to help avoid temptation when the drug cravings hit, we had a long series of counseling moments about the incident. I can't go more into his particular situation, due to confidentiality, other than to say he is now married, has a career, and writes back on occasion to say thanks and let me know how he's happier now even on his worst days than he ever was during his down times."

"So what, you're saying this guy wanted to be "normal" so bad that he would've been just fine if you hadn't been there." Jack's finger quotations immediately drew a chuckle for Kelly. Ever since the video leak from anonymous sources to multiple media fronts of the the council's reaction to Shepard's warnings prior to the attack on the Citadel, the gesture had gained universal usage, if not meaning. To all non-human races, the gesture came to mean a statement of such undeniable obviousness as to be laughable, while humans had the additional interpretation that when done in sarcasm, anyone actually believing the point of view should be shot into the nearest appropriate spacial phenomena, ie. black holes, gas giants, etc.

"Normal, Jack? You're not normal, you'll just never be normal,.."Seeing her biotics start to flare, Kelly held up a hand as a wait a moment gesture, to which Jack replied by tapping on her wrist, the blue arcs between her wrist and finger popping each time she lifted her finger. "I'm saying even if there were something like _normal_, which there really isn't, then you getting mad about it not being a possible goal in not only a waste of effort but also a avenue for defeat. Let's try this a different way, you say normal like a curse and your not being out of control is a very good goal, but what's changed? Why do you want to be different now?"

Looking at her eyes, Jack could see she knew and the immediate impulse to lash out and smash her head into bits like soft center candy with a biotic punch flashed past her so quickly that she jerked as though a spasm had hit. Feeling abruptly drained and miserable, her biotic display petered out as she dropped her head and shoulders in a slump. "Either he doesn't know me and it'll ruin things later or he does know and knows we can't do anything unless I change."

"What do you mean? He, and I think we can safely say Shepard, it's obvious he wouldn't ever let anyone near you. He cleared you with everyone-" "No!"Jack interrupted,"he can't keep doing it forever, even if he did, why should he have to watch out like that. Hell, it probably be used against him later."Jack stopped herself there, realizing she hadn't even tried to deny who was the reason for her confusion. Kelly, of course was sitting perfectly still, having barely moved, but Jack could see the corner of her lips curling and uncurling, trying to drag the rest of her face into trouble.

'That's why you might be able to do it, reach some sort of peace with both the notion and the practice, because you're in love." Jack cocked her head at her, giving her a look as though she'd suggested kissing Miranda. "Seriously, cause if that's the magic cure all, then your example was fucked. I'll bet Mr. Alliance doc was loving that red sand." "Yes, but like most things bad for us, the aggravation and challenges of keeping his habits a secret made him fall out of love, but by that point addiction and his own mistakes had made things unbearable. He could have fallen to the edges to be lost, but rediscovered a love of medicine in his visits to the VA that made him bear with the invasive therapist nipping at his heels." Kelly inclined her head at the end. "My first patient out of college."

Jack seemed to freeze for a few moments, with Kelly just about to ask if there was something wrong before Jack calmly nodded her head and said,"So what's first?"

-.

Jack heard Kelly's tale about her doctor, the pussy who couldn't handle his drugs, and considered her next few days, either dealing with Kelly or trying to hearing her out. Granted she could easily kill the girl and dump the corpse out of the garbage chute. Even with the AI monitoring everything, Jack had had enough time and isolated pad computers to loop security footage long enough to escape a week after her arrival. Still, she'd have to deal with Shepard, and lying to him as he asking questions over and over; and the suspicion, which she'd be perfectly fine ignoring except from Shepard.

Then she thought about what it'd be like if she actually did that, got away with it, and nothing changed. She'd sit in her hole waiting until called on missions or sightseeing, but couldn't talk with anyone, Shepard slowly beginning to avoid her and finally dumping her off instead of having to take her out for snapping at some hapless idiot in her natural way. That finalized her decision, better to be hated or left confused than ignored or forgotten. "So what's first?"

AN: Always loved the paragon romance of Jack, but really would have hoped for a Renegade romance option, something that would let you believe Jack hadn't received a lobotomy mid-mission as her response from your last conversation prior to the suicide mission is pretty Jack-tastic, but her deal in the cabin seemed Jack-lite. It's sweet enough for cavities in drama form and a heck of a shift to the character right at the end.

Anyways that's the reason for Jack's attempts at normalcy, I'm going for both Shepard and Jack to change some so their closer together personality wise at the end. I'm not really planning to do a lot with Kelly other than this intro to their situation, and a couple referencing lines in future chapters, as I imagine there's not a lot of interest in such.


	5. Times before that time

Shepard had stood at the galaxy map for the past hour just flicking randomly between star systems, pulling up a system after system just to immediately close it down. It felt odd for Joker who could see the activity clearly as if he was next to the commander and watching over his shoulder, as the galaxy map was tied to the navigation software. The dude never quit working and now he was just in his own world, probably not even realizing that he was the focus of every subtle glance and worried observation on CIC deck team.

The navigation monitor was barely keeping up with the random searches being done, saying "route calculating..route cancelled.." over and over along with the times stamps that differed only by a few milliseconds. The list of routes cancelled had long swept past the top of the display and had switched to a scrolling list. It was unusual, the admitted layabout of the crew seeing his commander essentially killing time, he considered trying to talk with the commander, but he'd never exactly been the greatest at socializing.

Besides, Edi had shown him a quick video capture as Kelly had been pulled off the bridge, to see if it was concerning enough to contact the XO for, he knew better than to get anywhere between Jack and Shepard. The thing between those two would either become the stuff of epic legend, or wind up the cause of a the Normandy SR-2 becoming a mile long stretch of strewn rubble and smashed bodies. Deciding to try and ignore it in favor of something he could do, he looked up at a speaker box near eye level that he'd just habitually come to focus on whenever he talked with Edi.

"Edi?" "Yes, Mr. Moreau?"

"You notice how tense things are around here lately?"

"Only to the extent that personal habits and schedules are being ignored, meals are eaten intermittently and the hidden mattress in the hold has only been occupied twice in the past two weeks, both times by a single occupant." Joker's face started to redden up at the last observation.

"You actually keep track of the last one?"

"No, Mr. Moreau, that was simply a exaggeration to relieve tension. You have also begun to show deviations from your standard schedules. Is there something troubling you?" Looking back over his shoulder, he saw Shepard, eyes down, flicking between menus and displays without really seeing them.

"Yeah." With that Joker turned back to his screens and decided to run simulations while he was waiting for a destination to finally stay locked on his board.

_.

Shepard had been playing with the map while thinking on Jack. He'd been sure that he'd screwed things up permanently by running out like that, but he'd just never run into a situation like Jack before. He knew he should ignore it and shove his feelings down to get back to work, but he was developing a severely unbalanced feel that'd even had him check the deck plate gravametrics to make sure the field output was level.

He'd spent the last couple of months moving robotically, having felt since his resurrection that everything was just slightly unreal. Whether that was a after effect of being dead, part of the resurrection tech that'd been required to bring him back, or his own mental crisis, he'd pushed himself beyond even his own levels, moving through missions with singular focus, often taking out the bulk of enemies before his squad mates had realized there'd been enemy contact.

The first shock to that outlook had come on the prison ship Purgatory as he'd come to negotiate the peaceful turnover of a combat specialist, a biotic of unusual potential. He'd worked with biotics before, and generally thought them more than a little arrogant about abilities that were in direct competition to standard skill sets. A biotic finding a enemy, had to focus on a specific series of mental associations that triggered mnemonic training to force e-zo nodes in a complex dance to form a biotic attack to be pitched like a frisbee. It wasn't that Shepard couldn't see the benefits of a weapon that couldn't be taken away without generally killing the individual, it was just why warp when you could use incendiary ammo, why lift when you could flank. Those seconds spent concentrating on hocus-pocus often is what allowed him to take out enemy biotics before they'd even had a chance to put up a barrier.

Still, he'd proceeded with the exchange in wooden fashion, not a hint of annoyance or anger as he calmly threatened to kill every guard in the place when they demanded his weapons. The glares of rental cops and the warden had been reflected back by Miranda and Garrus, while Shepard had begun to fiddle with his pistol, alternating back and forth between incendiary and armor piercing ammo while completely ignoring everything else. After the warden had seen that nothing was going to change the spectre's mind, he'd grudgingly allowed the squad aboard but demanded the docking portals be locked down until the transfer had completed.

Seeing as he carried a portable armor piercing heavy weapon capable of mini mushroom clouds of devastation that'd twist that armor over the door like a plastic wrapper, he smiled as he said, "Sure, you do that if it helps. I mean, hey, you're on a space station with little defenses, having a couple squadrons of flyers and possibly a battalion of guards, and I have a warship with a cannon capable of putting a hole _through_ the Destiny Ascension, but if using the little chain on the door helps you with your fears of burglars, go ahead."Smiling broadly at the fazed warden, he walked up to him he gave a little shooing motion from his hand like he was telling a bell boy to hurry up and pick up his bags,"Well, on then to this highly expensive popsicle."

The warden stood stock still at this statement, and seemed about to order them thrown off the ship, his mandibles frozen in a half gasp expression before tightening up to rigidly and turning about to have the squad trailing in his wake. Several times he tried to stop to explain either his base or his favorite movie or some crap, but each time Shepard just kept walking, the third time simply stopping a inch away and jabbing the armored Turian in the back with the barrel of his Mattock,"Enough with the attempts to make me a believer, slave boy, either I see Jack in 30 seconds, or I remove the highest point of annoyance in this stupid place before walking back to my ship."

Seeing the warden stop and start a half dozen times before jerking his shoulders to a door at the end of the hall,"Out processing is through this connecting hall and past our technician station at our secondary receiving area. I'm sure you can handle the rest, now go, I have to confirm that payment has been received before I'll let you take her out."

Miranda twitched slightly at this, the equivalent of a 3 foot jump backwards in shock in Miranda's world, before asking,"She? I though we were here to pick up a 'Jack'?" "You don't even know who she is?"the warden asked incredulously, his mandibles flicking alternately up and down making a rasping noise, the Turian version of a dry chuckle. "Well you'll find out soon enough," pointing a hand again towards the end of the hall,"out processing, I'll be back once I've verified everything is ready." With that the warden about faced and walked back the way they'd come in.

Watching the warden walk away, Shepard put his index and trigger fingers to the dermal contact on his left earlobe, the subcutaneous implant setting up a contact relay to his ship. "Edi?" "Yes, Shepard." "Begin surreptitious attempts to interface with the systems here, I want it quiet for now, but be ready to be able to open the doors to Jack and the doors back to our loading tunnel." "Understood, Shepard, logging you out."

"Have a feeling?"Miranda asked from his left. "No, Shepard's just gotten the double crossed enough times to know that it'll always happen when you aren't prepared, so he always has a backup plan. Not that it usually works." Shepard heard all of this, and couldn't help responding,"They always work Vakarian, you're just never going to let go of the being buried alive with a nuclear weapon-thing, are you."

Garrus started to laugh as Shepard continued, "I mean, yes, the whole have the Normady fire a precision strike to clear the collapsed tunnel thing would've never worked, but I just threw that out there so Tali would think I had a back up beyond saying 'Well, shit.' It worked, right, she quit immediately with the 800 rapid fire questions and had the thing defused in 10 seconds."

"Saying 'Well, shit' was your back up that time?" interjected Miranda, wondering if she should've tried to involve herself in the pre-mission session with Garrus and Shepard, but that'd be a boys club she'd never crack. "Please tell me there's a back up on this mission."

Shepard straighten along with Garrus to give Miranda a steady look as they chorused together,"Well, fuck."

"Outstanding. And that little conversation with Edi?"

"To screw with you, seriously, are you expecting a secure facility, let alone a prison, to have external links to their security protocols? I'd call them 'f'in retards' if she could even access their security cameras."

Shepard's antics were severely beginning to punish Miranda's calm, as she'd never worked with anyone who didn't take her seriously. Many had ignored her or contested her, but it was a first to be considered inconsequential. She gently started to rub her temple to keep a headache from developing, a habit she'd only developed in the month of working with Shepard.


	6. Finally someone not needing to be saved

Time gets funny when all external stimuli is just that, external. You can kinda remember the pattern of footsteps just outside the cell, the heavy double beat of mechs making sweeps. However, every few years by her perception, she'd feel the thrum across her skin and through out her body as her heart would beat, and she would feel. It totally scared the shit out of her every time she felt it come on, because she'd finally begun to feel cold and dead, like she was becoming hollowed out, only to feel the pulse and suddenly feel everything for a moment. These milliseconds of lucidity every few minutes, as her heart slowly ebbed in the effects of the stasis cell, would bring everything back, let her remember everything that had faded back to fog and half remembered screams.

Jack's awareness of herself was perhaps half-dream and half-intuition. Though she couldn't begin to guess at how long she'd been held in the tiny cell, bound to the interrogation chair, she'd felt certain that she'd felt a bump, whether that was from some guard tapping at her cell window with a pistol or from the drive core exploding a instant before she was vaporized, who knew? Another mini-eternity later she'd felt a jarring that had at first made her think the ship was falling into a gravity well, a instant of elation sweeping her as she imagined the whole misery of her time in the cell as coming to a close. Barely had the idea flitted through her fog of consciousnesses before she realized she was lifting up, she could see the walls sliding past as the stasis effect released it's power.

Light. Blinding acid in the eyes, clenching them did nothing but but grind the stabbing pains deeper, before she could stop herself. A moment later she was fine as the stasis had actually kept her rods and cones from adjusting to the pitch black of her cell. As her platform finally came to rest, she saw three mechs unwinding themselves from the contortionist fold they placed themselves in when not activated. Above in a little windowed observation room, she could see a small group of helmeted soldiers, most likely the latest interrogation team sent to try once again to extract any details on her Cerberus upbringing.

Dumb asses actually started the bullshit from her last time, the yells from the warden making her laugh as she was forced back into her cell. They'd actually believed that they'd had all the kids chained together, naked in the artic. Not that the truth was any better to hear, but that sure as fuck wasn't going to be said due to some asshole thinking he could force the information from her.

Finally having stopped moving, Jack realize that the morons had actually disabled the stun cuffs keeping her from moving. Normally any twitch would send 10 kV through her, a standard security precaution when dealing with a biotic, but now the only thing keeping her to the chair were a few centimeters of insulation cloth. Quickly she ripped the two opposing hand straps off, she kicked out with each leg, and in half a moment she was free.

Seeing their quarry leaving her restraints without authorization, all three mechs began to spin up their chain guns and align themselves for unimpeded firing lines on the target. Before any could begin to fire however, a massive shockwave flew in every direction , the mechs knocked back and unsteady as the interrogation chair was bent over and back in on itself by the explosion of force.

With everything slightly unsteady, Jack flung herself forward, any hesitation would have enough firepower on her to force a eventually surrender, and Jack wouldn't let that happen again, She'd drive this floating piece of shit into the sun before letting herself get marched into a cell again, the warden all the while making comments about how he'd be living rich off her ass for the rest of his life.

Charging forward, Jack pressed for everything she had, determined not to get boiled into a battle of attrition. Her first shockwave having thrown off their aim, her second attack hit like a battering ram, completely blowing apart the mech directly before her while the other two her pushed back, then completely annihilated as the debris of the first mech slammed into them. Seeing the all three disabled, Jack glanced up and saw the group eyeing her with shock clearly evident in their postures. Flipping them the finger, she reached a hand out and bioticly hammered a hole in the wall which she took off down like a streak into maintenance tunnels barely lit by emergency lighting. Jack assumed she must've ripped out the area power feeds if she was already finding darkened passages. Time for a little fun.

-_.

Shepard had barely noticed the mission up to the point that things started to go sideways. The warder betraying him had brought a punch to the arm from Garrus with a laugh, while even Miranda seemed to smirk at the nearly prophesized turn about from the warden.

"Your're happy about this, right?", Miranda asked as she ducked behind cover and waited for the guards to overheat their weapons as they vainly shot into her cover. "Aim you dumb asses don't just spray and pray!", shouted Shepard, to hear a immediate drop off in shots. A quick nod to Garrus, and both quickly flipped over their cover, quickly taking out the guards who'd decided to pop their heads up to take aim. Six rapid shots, two from Shepard's widow rifle and four from Garrus' mantis had the enemy cleared in moments.

"God, yes!" Shepard answered finally, "Why wouldn't a bunch of idiots who actually take instruction from their enemy make me happy?" Garrus came over to the duo, swapping out his sniper for his assault rifle. "Yeah, remember, this is the guy who rather than take ten seconds to just shoot his enemy, spent five minutes debating philosophic ideas over what it means to live before convincing him to take his own life. All of this while thousands were fighting in battle."

"Bite me, bone-face, you saw me twiddling my fingers behind my back, subtly telling you to "shoot the fucker I'm talking to in the head while I have him distracted". Shepard turned to look at the Turian, crossing his arms and definitely glaring at him through his darkened eye guard. "Yeah," easily replied the glib and scarred veteran, "but you know it worked out better that way, for the movie and all."

"Yes, and do you remember the first thing I did after pulling myself out of that pile of wreckage Sovereign's leg made of the council chambers?"

"You called the Normandy and had them immediately eject all the dextro liqueur and my bed out the airlock, yes, I remember."

Feeling vindicated, Shepard relaxed his confrontational stance with a chuckle, realizing the whole time they were talking, that Miranda had been busy scavenging clips, updating Edi with a situation report, and checking their egress for incoming. "Just as long as you remember the lesson, Vakarian. Let's move it out, I don't want a hostage situation developing where the warden tried to take this "Jack" as a shield."

"Little chance of that, Shepard." Miranda chimed in. "Scans and historical blueprints indicate that the highest security areas are all isolated cells fitted with cryo-stasis. Odds are we'll need a microwave when we find her." Looking back from his lead spot in their formation, Shepard saw a small little lift to her cheek, literally the most emotive reaction he'd seen from the staid woman since they met.

"Finally, a moment of levity from the C. Queen." "C. Queen?" asked Miranda. "A name that seems to have floated around in your wake among the crew. I believe the 'c' is for Cerberus, but don't make me bet on it." at this, Shepard knew Miranda was going through her mind at all possibilities, though his first guess with the engineers had proven accurate, not that he'd ever clarify the matter for her.

Finally shirking the trivial, Shepard and team entered the administrative controls for the high security wing. A technician who'd fired a shot at him as he'd entered was whining in a corner about his broken wrist and ankle, caused as he'd felt the impact of the concussion shot Garrus had nailed him with a moment after he'd been lifted by Miranda. Shepard, barely noticing the noise at all, went over to the control station to see what could be determined. Seeing only a overload of the internal locking mechanisms would be able to break the warden's lockdown, he quickly gestured at Garrus to do the deed as he turned located Jack's cell and finding a menu labelled interrogation, pressed the icon showing two individuals talking back and forth.

"Garrus, what's with these interfaces? No real labelling other than main menus, it's like they assumed that people completely unfamiliar with the system would be trying to figure it out without reading the manual. I've seen more technical knowledge required to order a burger on the Citadel."

"Not sure, other than they assumed their standard guard might not be the intellectual savant needed to read things like "do not press" or "open cell door"." Glancing over Shepard's shoulder, Garrus couldn't believe his eyes. "Huh, they really do have a picture of a person behind a door openning and closing, funny. Anyways, I'm done here, but I had to bypass the lockout, meaning it'll hit all the cells. Hope you brought some extra clips."

"Do it." With that, Garrus tapped a button on his tool, allowing it to send a quickly devised program to ignore further communications with the warden and also arcing a bolt of electricity out to the panel, causing the lights to flicker a moment before they heard a familiar whirling sound. Looking out the window, they could all see a panel set in the floor of the room beyond openning to reveal a pit, a bound figure rising on a platform to ground level. Seeing yet another human, Garrus gave a sigh before straightening up. Just once he'd have liked a bit of novelty, a female Turian biotic would've been pretty bad ass and allowed Garrus a reason to leave his duties other than getting hammered with Shepard and Jacob.

Miranda saw the figure rise from the ground and had a double take reaction. At first the convict had appeared to be a emaciated male, bound and half naked, likely as part of his interrogation Further observation proved that erroneous as he, correction she, was covered in blues and black swaths of tattooing, that while beautiful even from this range, likely provided no protection from the elements or small arms fire. Miranda couldn't help to look at the flawless skin of her hands and imagine what force might make her want to mar it to such a degree. Unlike Shepard, who seemed just as happy collecting scars and tattoos as much as adding to his odd assortment of crew, she'd never really thought about inking her skin.

Shepard barely noticed the convict move, hardly noticing her as the mechs spinning up and immediately turned his attention back the way they came. Knowing that they'd immediately take out his hard fought quarry in a moment, Shepard couldn't help a small, "Shit!" burbling out as he considered the wasted trip and the likely long struggle to fight back to his ship. As he considered their likely resistance going back, he'd not noticed the jerks of surprise from his squad as they'd seen the convict rip off her binds like taffy and started to rush towards the mechs. He quickly turned back at feeling a massive shockwave wreck the room, seeing the past the cracked window as a petite woman, radiating the densest cloud of biotic charge he'd ever witnessed, charge a opponent out of sight, a second later being jerked onto his back as a nova of energy seemed to detonate from the floor beneath them.

Seeing the rest of his team also getting up, Shepard finally seemed to wake up from his general apathy, looking back to Garrus,"Finally, someone who doesn't need me to save their ass. Let's go watch the show." With that, Shepard showed a real, a real actual smile, and booked feet to try and catch up the powerhouse rather quickly tearing through the skyscraper sized station. Shaking his head at the comment, Garrus couldn't help smiling as he tried to catch up to his commander, the Cerberus operative closely following behind.

AN: Complete-ish, baring grammatical and clarity fixes. Just a heads up, I've mostly planned out the rest of the game's story with the finale to this story being the after SM party aboard the Citadel, but am open to story requests as long as I don't have to retread through a chapter.


	7. Revising crew dynamics

_One day after escape from the Blue Suns.._

Jack was examining her artwork as best she could, bare under the scant illumination of the cargo hold lights. The cleanest was still her black omega symbol, but her phoenix as starting to fizzle out at the tips of her feathers. She'd heard the stories muffled through glass, being taught to the rest of a class as she'd sat alone and unheard. _Fucking bastards just ignored me, wish I could've taken more out as I ran from that shithole. _Jack looked up in the light filled with sublime quivers as her shoulders settled back, imagining ripping the arm off one of the faceless mob that'd been facing her and beating a few to death with it, and enjoyed a mellowing endorphin rush.

A small thrumming through the deck plating had snapped Jack's head forward, her eyes immediately focusing to the elevator doors. Seeing them open, she saw the Commander look around earnestly before spotting her by the "hidden" crew cubby hole. She'd nodded at him and expected him to wander on with whatever wanker thing he did when he wasn't being a meat shield. Seeing him oddly twist away though, Jack walked over to see what was the issue. As she walked closer, he seemed to become more fixated on the warning sticker stating main power feeds mounted on an overhead panel.

"Jack, hey, so looking around?" "Yeah, that a problem?" Hearing the challenge, Shepard couldn't help liking the girl's stones. Basically saying, "Bitch, try stopping me from going anywhere!", but with a small lilt. He recognized it, had used it a couple of times to make quivering masses of the nerves of his opponents before rapidly striking them dead. Feeling the mood, he simply arched his back straighter then relaxing it as he chuckled, never moving his eyes from directly in front of him. "Jack, anyone tries to stop you, please give me the courtesy of calling him a moron before you kill him. Seems like information like that'd be handy, if you believe in reincarnation."

Jack immediately stopped at his chuckle and declaration, seeing his relaxed posture merely talking to her without hawkishly eyeing her for any threats. If felt so weird that she felt a little lost in the moment, not knowing if she should fight or flee. She started to joke that he'd have to run quick before the coma inducing AI's voice announced that Shepard was to immediately report to the conference room for a urgent matter. He just seemed to vibrate for a moment, arcs erupting at his crossed fingers for a second before, his spine tensed, his posture becoming The Shepard rigid. Glancing back over his shoulder a millisecond before resolutely walking to the elevator, Shepard called, "Jack, check back with me if you need anything, and might want to put something on."

The elevator doors had barely closed as Shepard had started to back talk the AI, demanding to be taken to his quarters to finish changing, before Jack noticed her nudity as an afterthought. It hadn't been until he'd mentioned it that it had occurred to her; being alone makes things like nudity, volume control, hygiene, and a hundred details either become rote habit or left to the wayside. She wasn't one of those slobs who'd abandoned all hope, but little things like standing naked in the middle of a strange ship had long been a laughable issue. His reaction, or rather lack of reaction was definitely different. Even in her earliest memories as a girl, every man who'd seen her had seen her as an object to be used, usually for research or on occasion for a fleeting passion, but never with real interest in her. His instinctive respect of her modesty was almost humorous, if it also didn't make her stomach twinge as if poked.

...

"Hello, Dick."

Shepard had wanted to immediately begin his first introductions with Jack, but had been delayed as Miranda had unexpectedly brought the Illusive Dick from behind the curtain, so to speak. The holo-pad flickered occasionally, allowing flashes of the comms room grey to be seen as before the obviously overdone and inefficient office of the Dick was cleared up again. Chain smoking as usual, Dick was staring at him in annoyance, but arched a criminally perfectly plucked eyebrow at his greeting.

"Dick?"

"Just suffer through it, I'm not about to stand here another second if I have to hear that pompous title again. Dick is perfect for you. So what was so important that Miranda went around me and called up her boss, then had EDI try to order ME to this meeting while I was still removing my armor. By the way, the holo-pad in my room needs replacement."

"Fine, the title is just there be necessity when dealing with the uninitiated. Keeps them respectful until they seen my methods in action. The purpose of this meeting is your allowing access to our private data stores to this convict you picked up. I'd hoped the man capable of persuading a blood raged krogan warlord could acquire her help without giving the keys to the store, as it were."

Pausing for a moment to lean over and puff from his cigarette, he continued,"as to Miranda's actions, they were and continue to be my instructions, to contact me in the event of your direct opposition. You can't really expect us to place the keys and guns in your hands and not want to know if you going to immediately turn them upon us. We need a leader willing to fight the Reapers, not some man fighting a pissing match with every pirate and junkie in need who happens to meet your moral requirements."

Seeing Dick settle back after his speech, and taking another puff of his cigarette, Shepard smiled at him with his eyes lighting up with focused biotic intent. "Allow me to apologize, clearly my ability is limited to one small successful collaboration of species against a near invulnerable sentient AI, maybe I should listen to the people who couldn't handle fucking thorian fucking creepers. Or rachnii, or blood raging krogan too stupid with adrenaline not to run down overlying angles of fire, through a mine field. Seriously, you guys are about the worst god damn vacuum headed idiots in the universe when it come to how to proceed, and you want to micromanage how I deal with my crew.?" At this, Shepard walked out of the field for a moment before walking back into the pad range with a obviously dazed Miranda being pulled along by the arm.

"Sir?!" Miranda's strident and fearful statement made clear her worries, was Shepard about to kill her on the Illusive Man's orders? Had he decided she'd failed somehow in her duties? Knowing these could be her last moments, she resolved herself to at least meet them without the pains of dragging things out by running or pleading, Shepard wouldn't be stopped by anything she could throw at him with the entire ship at her command, let alone where she was now. Seeing the confusion on her boss's face though forced a jolt of terror through her as she realized that Shepard had secreted his pistol from somewhere and was now simply holding it at his side, small tremors flicking through it every few moments as biotic charges arced to the gun's handle.

"Dick?" Taking another moment, Shepard calmed his features as he fixed is focus on a point a few meters in front of him, his shoulders slightly uncoiling. "Here's the deal, the one time only deal that's the only way I'll every be willing to hear a word from you." Seeing her boss jerk at the heated irritation in Shepard's voice made her terror equally be met with surprise, he clearly hadn't expected anything like this to happen. While it should have made her frantic, she suddenly realized she'd never considered the possibility that he might not have a plan, or know exactly what might happen. It had frankly been an obvious oversight on her part, but she'd just blinded by his earlier accomplishments and acceptance of Cerberus' role in keeping her sister from her father's attention. However, if either she or he could make such a mistake with Shepard, then Oriana couldn't be considered safe, not anymore. All these thoughts passed in a moment for Miranda, who now wished fervently that she'd made back up plans and resources secreted away in case of her death. It was another oversight, being on a suicide mission and all, but she'd just assumed much as her boss obviously had, that Shepard would lead everyone through, with legendary morality keeping him on a predictable straight and narrow path following information parceled out to Shepard in nuggets.

"I answer to you, they answer to me. If I say they get access, you will hear about it from the reports I would've likely been filing in an hour, and not from instant comms, without my knowledge nor shall I be being ordered around by fuck all any of you. If that wasn't clear enough, I could execute Miss Lawson, and in about 10 minutes have this ship cleared to only people I trust, and your AI just screaming away in it's little black box." At this Shepard leaned slightly back beyond the holo-pad's view before shooting EDI's pad in the room and leaning back withing range. "So, you want me, you really want me, the Lion, then you play by my rule book and games. Sure as fuck, this backseat QB bullshit is over if you want me to save all of our asses." With this, Shepard shot straight down, his bullet hitting the pad a few millimeters from Miranda's hand. She jerked back, but kept her head down, simply too afraid to think of anyway to save herself, barely noticing as the holographic display shattered and crackled before winking out entirely.

"Miranda." She jerked back at this before looking up, expecting a gun to held to her head. Instead, he stared down, his eyes full of seeming compassion, like he'd been in far worse places and had seen the infinite paths back. "You can go, you can stay, either way I wouldn't have wanted to push this. You know the consequences if we fail and I won't have his preaching or practices destroying all life in this cycle. Grow the fuck up and stow your bullshit, XO." With that he walked out the door, a few minutes later as she'd finally settled and had the wit to ask revealed that he'd immediately gone to his loft, finished removing his armaments, taken a shower and dropped off to bed with almost mechanical rigidity. The only sign of his agitation over the events being a sizable dent in the reinforced panel of the elevator wall.

AN: Sorry about the long time between update, I think I mentioned before that I was dutifully employed doing stuff no one here would care about. Suffice it to say stuff like that ruins my flow, but I am still doing chapters, still working up to the big dance (?) scene at the citadel. Fun, fun, FUN! Read and review, I totally dig it when people do. Even if they tell me my grammar sucks, which it does tend to do on occasion.


	8. Detente in the workplace

"Miranda." Miranda looked up from her spot sprawled on the floor. It had felt like hours since Shepard had left for bed, but had actually been just 10 minutes as the operative had sat in a crumpled heap and the Illusive Man had looked on in distracted contemplation. "Sir?"

"We're not going to be able to keep him much longer. Begin _Broken Shield_ protocols." He sounded like a disappointed parent, hating to say their child needed remedial education, disappointed but accepting what must be done.

"Sir, we wouldn't be able to stop the Reapers even with the full might of the galaxy behind us, and that'll never happen in the first place. Sir, you said it in the begining, even if he were to place a gun to my and every agent's head, we'd back him as no other option exists. Doing this might be the initial falling domino that leads to the fall of humanity."

The Illusive Dick barely acted as though he'd heard her, calmly taking another cigarette puff. "That was because even if he were to remove every agent, he would still be aboard my ship, with my AI capable of disgorging him at destinations of my choice. His latest statements would put even that limited level of control beyond us, and I have no doubt that he has the ability. Furthermore, the latest feeds from EDI show a alarming familiarity with the crew, and your being relegated to the authority of a school matron. When was the last command decision you were included om?"

"The incorporation of..." Miranda started, only to be cut off by a suddenly animated Dick,"The new data feeds for EDI, which had prior to your input been already discussed by the engineering crew with Shepard, and the installation already begun. Miranda, reviewing time stamps on these logs shows you were informed exactly two minutes prior to the installation being finished. Either we find a way to keep you in the process or we find another option. Get your crew back to toeing the line or we'll begin the process of shedding our masks."

With that the link was cut off, his glowing glare focused at her afterimage form still sitting on the floor, as though she'd just forgotten herself in the exchange, until it disappeared Obviously shell shocked from the impact of Shepard's threat, but even besides that she'd never openly contradicted his instructions before. Her changing affect was not mentioned, but perhaps the strongest indicator of his waning control over Shepard or the Normandy.

-.

Jack had been guided to the lower engineering supply area by the voice of the AI, to see a small nest laden with storage boxes obviously shoved hastily to the side along with a small cot having been squeezed in. Seeing the lackluster accommodations Jack had at first been slightly disappointed. She'd thought Shepard would've done slightly better than a storage shed, like the new dog just purchased and unplanned for, so shoved in the laundry room where it could do the least amount of damage. She walked back up to the elevator, thinking about hunting down the spectre before she spotted him through the cargo hold window, just exiting the elevator.

He obviously swept his gaze across the hold, most likely looking for her, before turning to the small gym by the Kodiak. She stopped her contemplation as she saw his eyes as he'd turned to the weight set, picking up the one-twenty labelled bar. The corona of repressed biotics was barely visible, but she'd never have missed the sheer look of fury making the rest of the crew deck suddenly find a need to visit the galley. Within a couple of moments, the deck was clear as the Commander began the do bench curls with a impressive amount of weight. His arms tensed and bulged as he curled the equivalent of two of her rapidly, the speed and regularity showing her he was barely trying, mostly just trying to occupy himself as he wrestled with whatever was irritating him this time.

She had only a moment of hesitation, before chiding her self with a muffled, "Quit being a bitch." She smacked a fist against the window, making a noticeable pop that echoed the hold and jerked his baleful gaze up to his next source of interruption. Seeing it was her made him immediately back down and slow down his reps, before taking the bar in one hand as he used the other to wave her down.

Seeing the wave both elated her in a small contrary part of her psyche, a part that just as quickly began wondering why she was feeling joy at anything and reminding her to never show feeling, the rest of her psyche was stalled in appreciation of the one handed bar swap and wave, a move that would've been pretty intimidating from a krogan, but from a biotic-techie like Shepard made her feel tense and charged at the same time. Still she wasn't a fool, by the time the elevator doors closed and began to descend to the cargo bay, she looked bored and slightly irritated at being summoned. If she could see her reflection, she'd have had a sliver of pride at how utterly bored she looked.

Seeing the doors open to reveal a Jack dressed in her convict's garb reminded Shepard he should top at the Citadel to get everyone some new duds. The only other options for people were the stacks of boxes pushed in a corner with Cerberus logos plastered on the shoulder.

_Seriously, for a supposedly secret terrorist organization, shouldn't they do a better job of hiding their personnel than a giant holo interface around the shoulder that flashed "Terrorist lackey" in running script?_

Stopping for a moment to chuckle at the mental image of Miranda's enthusiastic response to the idea from the Illusive Dick, he'd finally felt the last knot of tension at their little spat. The thought of their little spying ring hovering invisibly around his neck had him begin to tense before he called out, "EDI?"

"Yes, Commander?"

"As of this moment, who is your direct superior officer?" "You are Commander, baring any further instructions from the Illusive Man." "So, if I say, wanted to have a night without the constant harassment of Miranda or her Boss, I'd just have to say 'Route all comms to my omnitool and inform any inquirers that I've gone to bed'?" "Yes, Commander, though a direct inquiry from the Illusive Dick, as you refer to him, would reveal any such deceptions." Hearing the conversation, Jack had slowed her approach, hearing the title for the Cerberus leader making her snort and Shepard flashing her a quick grin.

"Then make it so, baring a Reaper itself or comms you can't ignore, I need one night without the threat of whiny bitch'itude." "Very well, Commander, logging you out and have a pleasant evening." With a audible click as the AI's comm receiver shut down, the Commander noticed Jack eyeing his hand, which he turned to notice he'd still been holding one-handed during the whole exchange. With a small huff at the fact he'd completely forgotten the substantial weight, he dramatically flipped the end up to catch the weight with both hands, suddenly affecting a man barely able to support the mass as he stagger stepped over to the rack, making a show of failing to make it slide into the slot before another stumbling attempt succeeded.

"Bitch'itude?" Asked Jack with a quirk, her eyes finally able to take in the total sight of him as he'd begun his little stage routine. She really couldn't do much more than grin slightly at his antics, as she'd never in her experience had a actual living person try to make her laugh. Little vids for kids and other entertainments, but never anyone present and making the effort for her specifically. It made her feel uniquely privileged and scared, like she was on a imaginary pedestal waiting for inspection. Throwing the emotional confusion to the side for a moment, she stared at Shepard for a second before walking over to the shoulder lift machine, taking the time to set a reasonable weight before starting.

Seeing her nonchalance at his improvements made Shepard smile for a moment, it hadn't been a second alone with any of his previous companions before they'd remarked on his obvious changes. Jack's lack of familiarity with the old Shepard seemed a blessing in that he didn't have to hide behind the old Shepard standards, didn't have to immediately drop down to a lower weight load the instant he'd noticed one of them coming over or have to hide the near overwhelming irritation at working with Cerberus that had made his own teammates act as though he were a stranger.

"Yeah, got tired of the Dick and acting as though I were only a probationary Commander on this ship, you wanted the data before you'd even take a chance working on this ship and fuck any one of them that claims they'd have been able to convince you otherwise." Jack's biotic aura had started popping as soon as the word 'data' had left his lips, and just as suddenly winked out as he finished his statement. Feeling slightly worn out after one sentence with Shepard was becoming something of a pattern for Jack, though she'd tear the head off anyone stupid enough to point it out.

"What, they thought the guy who talked the host of a intergalactic vanguard into taking itself out would be able to sweet talk me?" Jack said with a sneer, but Shepard could see a small lift to her lips, so considered himself relatively safe to respond,"Dumbass actually thought the best way to save the galaxy was to help destroy it. Stupid doesn't need a lot to be convinced to change sides. So I see you were still able to catch bits of news from the outside."

"Overheard just about every guard on the station talking about it, even caught sight of that infamous video from your suit monitor as you'd talked to him." Thinking back on his statement, she'd noticed one word that made her flash in fury. Jack heard his humor but couldn't help the natural urge to smack down anyone trying to get the best of her,"Fuckers think I'm stupid! I tear that bitch's head-"

"Jack, no!" Hearing the command in his voice made him just as quickly a target and without thinking she'd swept a shockwave at him, fear and shock wiping away whatever momentary rage she'd been feeling as she saw him fly back into the weigh set, the support bar for the over head lift bending back about thirty degrees as his back collided with it before he'd rolled over the top to land in a heap about 3 meters away. She'd started to rush forward to check on him when she saw a flash from his arm and felt everything sweep down, her head suddenly impacting the deck as she couldn't bring her arms up to catch herself.

Her eyes and a bit of neck were the only part of herself she could move and looking down, she could see a light field dancing over her frame. The fact that he'd been able to exclude her head in such a controlled manner even after being pummeled like he had sparked a level of fear she hadn't experienced since she was a child. The helplessness, the cold of knowing there was someone with absolute power over her spite her rage and strength. She thrashed herself around with little success other that blooding her forehead against the deck as she'd tried to lever herself about without success.

A small jolt pulled her attention from her predicament, her gaze snapping up as she saw Shepard hop up as though he'd only slipped on a oil patch of the hold, not having impacted solid metal with forces that would've snapped a ordinary man's spine.

"Jack, let's go ahead and have a little conversation." He said this with a metered calming voice as he walked over to the bench press bench, picking it up and moving it to set it by Jack's prone form. Seeing her eye's twisted in a gaze of hatred and fear, he immediately dropped the stasis field and suggestively patted the spot next to him on the bench. Seeing her stand and uncoil as though expecting another fight, he lowered his head to gaze at the floor before again patting the spot next to him on the bench.


	9. A bit of that new home

He'd sat for another 10 seconds or so before he'd felt the bench depress slightly as someone barely sat at the edge, tensed for immediate flight. Taking a moment to glance at her, he was stabbed by a pain in his chest at seeing the hurt expression obvious in her eyes, her face a cold mask set to hide all expression, and failing at the moment. Seeing the blood streaking her forehead had him slowly raise his hands in a placating manner, like he had milliseconds before being flung into the weight machine, before slowly reaching into his pocket for a pocket size ampule of medigel for small incidental first aid. Taking it out and dotting a small globule of the clear gel on his index finger, he almost started talking as he slowly reached his finger to her scalp, her eyes darting back and forth between his hands and eyes looking for any tension indicating he was preparing to attack.

Seeing her fear had him pause his ministrations before he slowly started to reach for her again. "Jack, when was the first time they betrayed you, took you, whatever started this whole affair of hunting and torture?" The incisive nature of his question cut to the core of her, while his banal tone made the question itself seem almost casual in nature. Not waiting for a answer he'd smeared a trail of the gel across her forehead the contact with her blood instantly hardening it and allowing him to wipe off the excess. Slowly he lowered his hands from her head, the wound's ache no longer throbbing or feeling thoughts of having to strike quick before blood flow interfered with her vision tapering off the needle in her mind.

"Don't remember. Always." She'd barely voiced the answer, the only way he was sure of her response was from reading her lips as she'd looked at him with hints of fear and appraisal.

"So you know what they're like and have a damn good idea to expect betrayal from every angle. Hell, I get that better than just about anyone else in this galaxy," the look of absurd amusement flashed across her face, making him amend," the trusting the wrong people part, Jack. Hell, I can't imagine anyone dealing with this shit for their whole life, my first real experience being when we became grounded during the hunt for Saren."

At this Jack couldn't help but angle her head in confusion, "Grounded you?" "Yeah, they made a pretty big effort to hush it up after the whole Citadel battle thing, but prior to my attempt to reach Ilos, we'd been called back to the Citadel being told that the Council was finally seeing the threat and about to marshal a fleet to hunt down Saren. Wasn't until we'd arrived that we found out that they'd just wanted the whole thing quietly muted, imagining a large enough stationing of warships would put a wrench in any plans he had."

Against her better judgement, she'd begun to follow along the story and relax, no longer anticipating a sudden attack from her bench companion. "So if you hadn't done something, we'd essentially be fighting a onslaught of Reapers, having already lost the Citadel and the majority of the Citadel fleets?" "Yep!" Shepard replied glibly, his face showing the fear and hatred of such minuscule thinking almost damning the galaxy to defeat. "So how did you fix things? I mean we're still here and the Council, fuck them all with a scouring pad, are still here, so what happened?"

"Stole the ship." It was obvious it was the last thing she'd expected to hear and she sat dazed for a moment before a small chuckle began to bubble lose. Hearing it, Shepard found it contagious and he started snort and hum with amusement about the paragon for humanity basically carjacking the hottest ride in the Citadel for a three hour tour. The sheer absurdity of it began to make him really laugh, the redness of his face becoming intense as he experienced his first true moment of humanity since being resurrected.

Seeing his need for the laugh, Jack had played it up, laughing along with him until they'd both petered out some seconds later. "So anyways, I'm not saying that you should trust them, or even begin to, just trust that I'll do what needs to be done, and that includes keep my crew at their best. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough, but I see one thing that looks out of place and I'll-" "You'll get in contact with me before unloading on them, got it?" His eyes hardened from their earlier joviality. Seeing her eyes begin to narrow, he held up a placating hand like he had done earlier, and this time she let him have his moment.

"I don't need to have to worry about them fucking you over because I'll be watching for it and, in truth, kinda hoping for a good opportunity to rip 'em apart, but what I won't have is one of mine not trusting me. You don't, that's fine as anyone else, walk off. I'll drop you anywhere and you be free to run and hide like those dumbass politicians hiding behind probability calculations and threat assessments until Reapers literally fry whatever world you trench yourself in."

She'd stop and started a few times through his moment, before finally stopping herself to think about the statement in it's entirety. He'd said she was one of his, that he'd needed her trust. She could see it now, the weariness and apathy, it was taking a tole to expect the world to keep shitting on him, a feeling she'd become so accustomed to as to become her whole world. So what did she want, to run? Hell, even if she did, she'd still be afraid, afraid of Cerberus hunting her down or the Reapers finally dropping out of the sky and her being completely useless against the building sized devils.

On the other hand, staying meant she'd have to trust someone, even if that someone was Shepard, well...even Jesus or some other deity of the month would've found her a pretty tough customer to convince of their benign intentions Still, even after having flung him like a rag doll and probably done enough damage to kill any other being in the universe, he sat quietly beside her, eyes on the floor as he just waited for her decision. Strangely enough, even though the idea of taking the opportunity to smear the walls with his internals didn't give her the usual blissful rush like it always did, just a cold little nub of hurt as seeing his lifeless eyes staring at her with compassion as he died.

-.

They'd sat there after Shepard's admission for a few minutes, Shepard not really expecting a verbal response as he watching for a violent physical response. Try as he might, he couldn't keep the occasion twitches coming from his fingers as he remembered being flung into the lift machine. Playing it off as though he'd been merely winded seemed to have been the right call, the look of shock and a little fear crossing her face as he's stood had been the main reason he'd so quickly let her loose, but he had no intentions of being assaulted again, so kept notice of the slight pulsing of her biotics as she flicked a finger, straightening the bent overhead and moving the whole weight room assembly, which had been thrust 4 feet off it's pegs by the impact, back into position.

He decided, as he watched her move the equivalent mass of two full size krogan by twitching her finger, that he'd never, ever challenge her straight up, as it'd quickly end with her chuckling over a two foot crater of his liquid remains, the solids having been pulverized into oatmeal. Seeing her eyes take a sudden increase in their flurry of glances between the rest of the cargo hold, him, the weight machine, him, and the overhead window, he figured she was approaching a decision.

"So why'd you save them?"

"The council? Mostly because while I still think the universe would be a sight better with their vaporized corpses still lingering in the Widow Nebula, but I'd never have heard the end of it from Anderson."

"Saw flashes of him during the awards ceremonies, the dark dude?" "Probably not the best way to describe him, but I imagine you only saw him in a video off the omni tool of some guard?" A short nod from her showed her assent, while her odd habit of sitting on her palms showed a obvious interest in hearing about the life while she'd been locked away, a small part of her wall letting itself down around him.

"He's my dad of another life, at least that's what I like to tell people. Love the guy, despite the occasional headbutting about not threatening the 'innocent'. " Seeing the famed spectre talking about a obviously treasured ally made Jack feel a little off, the feeling of not being completely able to understand the undercurrent of emotions in his voice made her resentful of lost chances and she felt a small nova of rage as she thought of the years taken from her. On the other hand, she wanted to know about the one man she'd ever seen him give praise about.

"Bitch, you can't say 'innocent' like that, sterling silver poster boy like you would have to save a Batarian terrorist if he ran out of ammo and begged forgiveness."

"Ran out of ammo?" His face went from slightly pensive to almost mocking. "Shut up, thermal clips, ammo, same difference."

"Yeah, I get that, but two things, one, I figured since you were in lockup when they really come around you'd put it another way, and two, stupidest fucking idea ever to replace nigh infinite ammo with freaking heat sinks."

The elevator was heard just as Shepard began his sentence, opening up just in time for the rider to catch Shepard's last words. "Seriously, still bitching about the new tech that came out while you were _vacationing_?" came a warbling call as his Turian brother walked off the lift.

"You still defending that piece of shit hackery of engineering?" called back Shepard, knowing Jack would hardly care to take either side of the argument she'd only bothered to pack a shotgun on their missions as he'd insisted on a backup; she'd not even bothered to pick up a gun as she'd walked through her path of destruction through the prison ship, preferring to lift terrified enemies before a rapid twist would fold her opponents in half and slam them back into the pavement. Only one opponent had thus far survived her initial attacks, but had been so crippled with pain that she'd found it more amusing to let him moan. Shepard had cued Garrus to put him out of his misery as he'd continued to trail the convict's wake.

"Your just still pissed that they tried to market the first models as "Shepard's" and the various issues and bugs made it one of the most lamented guns in the universe. Even thugs on Omega turn their noses up that the useless piece of shit," was relied back, his talons pitching up to resemble a merc firing a couple of rounds before looking once over his cover, back at the gun in his hands, and dropping it on the floor to take a piss on it. Jack laughed it up.

"Don't encourage him, he found a bulk buy of the things on omni-Buy, apparently he left the lot on a warehouse pad overseen by eclipse mercs, let them disseminate them among the troops, and launched a essentially bloodless raid as the mercs couldn't even get three shots off before they'd overheat, and what with having the punch of a pistol and the recoil of a Claymore, things were pretty much in the bag." Turning back to his mandible wagging companion, "You should be thanking me for somehow inspiring that piece of shit, any other way you would've gotten away with no losses?"

"Yea, a big fucking bomb, but you're right, the guns did kinda make things simple. Almost felt bad for the last few guys who rather than continuing to use them decided they made much better weapons when thrown than when fired." Looking up as he pretended to consider for a moment, curled talons just under his chin, he turned back and added," I gotta see if we can get one of those for Jacob, either he'll turn it into a decent weapon, or his head will explode, win-win."

At this, Jack burst out with chuckles that made Garrus raise a eyebrow before raising his arms and beginning to strut around the cargo hold; having made Jack laugh was strut worth, but verbally wailing on Shepard at the same time made it epic stuff. If only Tali were there to record the experience. Stopping at the thought, Garrus reconsidered as Tali being there would've made things so much more awesome to watch as Shepard was pulled like a planet caught between two black holes.

Finding himself on assault from two fronts, Shepard did the smart, honorable thing, beating feet while planning revenge. Seeing him mumble about "fucking scar faced ass holes" make Garrus cackle as he turned about and made his way to the elevator to ride up with Shepard, giving a tip of the hat gesture to Jack as he left.

Jack felt good and twisted up at the same time. She hadn't by any measure forgotten the fear she'd just felt from Shepard's easy disabling of her, but the quick give and take, the normalcy of the moment where she hadn't once felt the urge to smash either Shepard's or the Turian's faces was unexpectedly nice. The automatic itch to feel depressed was nonexistent, and though she still had a voice in the back of her mind chanting that things would end badly, she could for a moment quiet it with flashes of Shepard's acting at though he couldn't slide his weight back onto the rack and Garrus kicking his heels like a proud chicken as Shepard laughed red faced.

AN: So, ch.9, awesome to be getting there. Hope people are liking thing so far, let me know if you do, and thanks for reading.

AAN: Finally was doing a revision to a bunch of chapters and realized that changing the doc manager story wasn't enough to update the stories, so you might go back and maybe review my chapters as some have almost doubled in size and had several large revisions that were basically waiting on the back burner to be updated for a while. Sorry for my carelessness.


	10. Truer Words

Joker was still at his chair, even at three past standard time midnight, though he'd settled past monitoring thrust levels and engine output curves to engage in his second passion, Galaxy of Fantasy. His human necro-thief was battling another player in a automated duel; but despite a immersive sound and near 3d display from his omnitool, he had spent the last 22 minutes focused on a narrow string of red and white number strings scrolling above each avatar's head. It was this focus, and perhaps the near ear shattering metal soundtrack being played in his ear buds that kept him completely unaware of the person gesturing and waving in front of him before he felt his seat pitch to the side, avoiding a broken pelvis only by the momentary lift field that let him impact with the force of a feather.

Looking up in shock and anger, he saw a obviously irritated Jack and switched his expression to terror and the need for a bathroom break. He slowly reached over to his omnitool and tapped the power button, pulling out his ear buds in to pop in the small compartment along the wrist. "Sorry about that, I wasn't meaning to ignore you. What do you need?" The words came out in a small torrent that had Jack cocking her head.

"Edi, is this guy messed in the head or something?" Jack looked over her shoulder to the small speaker box at the fore of the ship as Edi's voice sprung from it.

"No, Mr. Moreau was just fixated on a fantasy game, or porn."

Hearing this Joker immediately jerked a fist at the camera, "Bite me, Edi, I was playing a game." at the same time as Edi added, "That was a joke."

Jack looked at the heap that was the pilot angrily murmuring "Stupid freaking AI answer machine", a moment of indecision playing across her face before she held out a hand. Joker looked at the gesture and for a second couldn't figure it out. He'd seen the gesture a thousand times, would've immediately taken the offer of assistance from anyone else out of a simple urge to get the Helpful Harry out of his hair, but seeing it from her had him drawing a blank. Was she demanding money? Maybe she was bored with the silence and wanting to break a few of his fingers?

Jerking her hand back, she snarled, "Fine, fucker, pick your own damn ass up!" before turning away to leave.

"Wait! I didn't mean anything by it, just didn't expect it. Please." It severely hurt to add the last, but he'd take the hit to make up for his idiocy, this time.

"'Kay, just whatever." Jack turned back to Joker, jerking a hand out almost imperiously before she settled a bit and calmly held out a hand. After a few seconds of muffled groans from Joker and Jack trying not to just jerk her hand back from the arm in her hand, Joker was able to lever his hips back into his seat. As soon as he'd let off slightly, Jack's hands both whipped back behind her to loop through her belt. Knowing the social withdraw tick from his own less than spectacular social development, he fought the urge to grin at another minority out of the human race's general 'blah' of normalcy. He also knew not to point it out, as it kind of came with the territory that you shouldn't point out other people's hangups unless they brought it up.

"Now that we're both feeling a little uncomfortable, what can I do for you? Or you just wanting to check out the best spot on the ship?" Joker gestured to the star field outside, closer points of light seeming to stretch out to the horizon while far off points out slowly track out of the window's field of view.

"Hear that you were on the previous Normandy, nearly went down with the ship." Joker looked over his shoulder out the window to just stare off.

"I heard you were some crazed biotic who couldn't keep her shit together," seeing her eyes narrow and her fists start to rise, he continued,"I'm just trying to point out that some crap doesn't need to come up in the first twenty words we share."

Jack stood there for a second, not really seeming to come to a decision for a moment, just waiting, before finally lowering her hands and settling back against the wall of the cockpit. "Not coming up here to let you cry about it, I'm just wanting to confirm the facts, mainly, did Shepard really die?"

"Oh, yeah, guess that's fair since you basically joined up with just his word and name for reasons why to trust the enemy." Joker had had to stop himself from just spitting out a snap answer. Jack had seen enough of the bad in the world from Cerberus and likely the Blue Suns that she'd never let something go without knowing for certain, and Joker didn't want to leave her in doubt about the Commander.

"I was dragging ass in the evac, trying to maneuver the ship into shielding the escape pods with no thruster or engine control. By the time Shepard comes to physically drag me out, I was mostly in a daze flicking back and forth between damage reports. I just fucking couldn't leave, not scared, just already thinking I'd rather be scorch mark with the ship than dead sardine in a six foot tube. Shepard just walks over, taps me on the back of the head, the moment I look back he grabs my arm and yanks me into the hall. Moving me like that fractured my arm in three places, but if he'd taken the second to remove the harness, I'd be dead. No way those Cerberus jerks would've shelled out three billion for me. He pitches me in but got his mags shorted or something by a hit we took a second later. He's just about to float out of reach when he stabs the auto cycle on the pod. Last thing of him I see up close is the happiness on his face."

"Happy, what the hell?" Jack looked over at him, beginning to think she was hearing another tale, her ire at being lied to bridging the gap between controlled frustration and blackout malice.

"You had to know him then, the man was what they call him now, Paragon of the blah, blah, blah. Watch the old vids and actually listen to what he says, a lot of that crap video editing that happened later made him seem irrational or shortsighted only happened after the council fucked things up at the battle." Seeing Jack perk up, Joker waved his hand in negation,"that's crap you'd have to ask him, and don't try to worm it out of anyone else, he'd take it personally. The things he did to that reporter after she cornered Tali," Joker shivered involuntarily at the comment before continuing,"anyways, he was probably happy he'd gotten off pretty much everyone, including Ashley. It took him coming back and having a few nasty surprises to change him. Day we met after his reunion with Tali, I'd have sworn Cerberus had skipped resurrection and just teleported him instantly to that moment. He was the same."

"The guy who walked out of the cargo hold earlier to talk with the Illusive Dick wasn't a fucking paragon of shit, I was expecting to hear a call a hour later to funerary services for the Bitch." Hearing this, Joker couldn't help a small grunt as he tried not to laugh at the Illusive Man's new moniker. He quickly reined in the eruption as he saw Jack glare at him.

"Sorry. Continuing on, he's had some stuff behind the scenes happen; and in addition, in public he's been the target of ridicule in the media for his statements about the Reapers before he died, he came back to find the Alliance had dropped the ball with the council, and even Anderson basically said he needed hard proof to make any real headway on preparations. I'd say his return from the Archangel rescue mission was the first time I'd encountered this facet of Shepard. The swearing, the lack of biotic control when he's pissed, the tendency to make his enemies hurt before taking them out, that shit's new. Kelly just says it's venting or calibrating, or some such crap. Hopefully Garrus will have some tips."

Jack just looked at him expectantly for a minute before he added,"That's it, you want more, ask the man himself.", before turning back to the stars and turning his omnitool back on. Seeing the obvious dismissal had Jack almost jerking him back before she caught herself. She wanted more, and could easily make the cripple sing, but knew the look in his eyes as he eyed her slowly levitate a loose clip of wire from some shoddy clean up. He'd tell five hundred lies, each more believable than the last before she'd get near the truth. _Huh, no fun if he's actually on the level._

Dropping the distraction, she nodded curtly before smoothly walking off. Joker could hear her boots tapping down the hall and only when he heard them knock against the stairs did he release the breath he'd been holding.

-.

She was back in her old cell, hearing muffled shouts of protest as kids were dragged in pairs down the hall to experimentation. Siblings, rivals, they tried to grab at any hand stretching out from the cells lining the halls. The floor vibrated as the howls of hundreds of children could be felt though her cell. The floors were covered in finger paints depicting people bent over in pain, the x's for eyes clearing showing those past help. Around the walls were pictures of giants, each distinct and cruel looking, she'd obviously spent much more time on the white coated guards than the hastily drawn victims.

She'd long ago stopped allowing herself to feel pity for people just out of reach, she started to hate them, wishing just a few could be taken off without all the screaming, crying, and dragging ass. Not like it'd ever saved a single one, so why keep fucking up her sleep. She'd tried a couple times in the beginning to beg for mercy, to plead for these nameless strangers, but their only response was to take special interest in those she'd try to save. They'd be just as like to be tortured in front of her as thrown in the ring to fight. The only thing she could do was mark the walls, tell the story for anyone coming along to this hell someday, seeing her mummified corpse next to a group of scratch marks at the door, the only evidence of each victim being a plainly done stick figure drawn anywhere there was room. Jack often had fantasies of being that skeleton, somehow seeing herself just gone from the world.

Hearing the cries die down, she rolled over, bringing her knees to her chin as she tried to squeeze her head into the pillow and block out the last dregs of misery before people got back to the steady state of depression. Her eyes popped back open at another cry, this time from her wing. Yelling in frustration, Jack flipped her pillow above her head and forced her head tight against the cot, hoping a vice of pressure might block the noise. Her eyes popped open to trace her latest addition to the walls.

Standing in a field of green, the only green used in the entire room, stood a negative of the guards, black against a white sterile horizon, the green a wash as though the rain had been colorful. The black suited shape was hunched over one group of victims, seeming to try and reach from the walls to the floors figures. Jack couldn't remember is she'd ever seen the figure before, or if she'd imagined him, but she'd talk as though he could hear, her only companion.

"Should've tried biting through their arteries instead of hoping to drag ass." The figure on the wall stood silent, as though in approval sentiments. "Hell, I'd do it if I wasn't hoping to take a few with me when they come." Hearing no words of vilification or rejection, she allowed herself a moment of happiness at the idea of the figure was praising her wit.

Her distracting herself had let her hand slip, the cries piercing her bubble a moment before she could pull the pillow back up and imagine that her room was all that existed of the universe, that she was one and soon to die. Huffing with frustration, she slung the pillow and thin sheet into the corner to stubble over to her window. Knowing it was useless, she thumped her fists a couple times against the glass before giving up, just deciding to lay on the floor with her x-eyed companions. Today was her birthday, not that she'd have cared to know, and twelve year old Jack was only nine years away from her eventual escape.


	11. As first dates go

_Back about the prison ship..._

Shepard didn't have to search for his quarry so much as follow in her wake of destruction which was a nice change of pace, for the most part. The new experience was tarnished by his target taking every opportunity to slow his pursuit. The maintenance tunnel she'd sprinted down was strewn with twisted off bulkheads and warped ruptures in the walls venting steam and other assorted mists in the air. It took them almost five minutes to negotiate the narrow corridor that Jack had rushed down in twenty seconds. Already Shepard was feeling tension as he'd hear the sounds of violence petering out as it started to go beyond his range of hearing.

"C'mon, she's going to get killed or run off." Miranda heard the tension in his orders and was able to allay one concern almost immediately.

"Shepard, Edi couldn't access their security protocols, so no luck with their new name, but she was able to access the emergency evacuation protocols, she's locked down all lifepods until we can either clear them or find our convict."

"Edi."

"Yes, Commander?"

"Good job with the pods, tell Joker you're now above him in authority." A weak "Jerk!" was heard as Edi relayed the comment back to Joker.

Shepard took the commentary with good grace, chuckling as he finally levered himself over the last beam and neared a hole blasted into the maintenance tunnel wall. Poking his head out for a moment, he jumped back as he saw a blur of movement towards him. He'd just gotten back into cover as a one by two by two meter bulkhead connector impacted the edge of the hole, it's fourteen thousand newtons of force tearing a large strip of metal three meters long and half as wide through the tunnel wall, the coupling bouncing a few more times before coming to a rest less than a meter from the pylon Miranda had ducked behind. Everyone stared for a moment, just in shock as calm evaluation of their quarry's abilities was rapidly becoming horror at what she could do.

Another quick peek showed the path to be clear, the tunnel opening onto a same two level common area, currently filled with the remains of Jack's amusement. Bodies lay strewn about, some horribly twisted, literally having their upper torso's snapped about to look at their rears, while others appear to have been ground into paste against the side walls. Large smears of blue and red blood showed in several streaks were she'd ground people, eraser-like, against the ship's hull until the stringy remains were apparently tossed at other assailants in a hail of bone and meat.

A low whimper near the hole came from a guard who lay bent over backwards, his legs spastically twitching ever few seconds near his ears, by the look of things his crushed armor about his waist the only thing keeping his body in a single piece. The large dent on his helmet showed where he'd been lifted and slammed with incredible force against the deck plating. Even Shepard, who'd become mostly inured to the wails of combat and the dying, couldn't just keep moving. He waved to gain Garrus' attention before indicating the merc and waving a hand in finality.

He continued to walk through the area, always checking around corners before jumping into cover. It was perhaps a spectacle to dive in fear of nonexistent enemies, but he'd long ago learned that the battle field was no place to sweat looking stupid. Better to duck and whine than to walk into a hail of gunfire. A rhythmic thumping from a adjacent passage drew them into a connecting passage to the next commons, the thumping coming from a severed leg that had been shoved into some power feeds, twitching against the wall as electricity arced through the dying nerves.

Miranda and Garrus caught up a second later, Miranda giving the foot a look of disgust before using her biotics to toss the limb further down the passage. Seeing the lights in the area immediately die down as the limb flew past, Shepard whipped around to glare at the operative. "Why did you do that?"

"Get rid of the twitching limb because it was obviously shorting some main power feeds? Probably because the smell was making me think of Rupert's supper last night and I was hoping to avoid vomiting in the middle of a fight." She raised her eyebrows at him, only noticeable as his helmet provided scant illumination, as though wondering what rationale he'd have for ignoring it.

"Next time just leave it. I've seen too many jury rigged 'jumper wires' to starters and det. packs, unless it twitches and keeps kicking you in the head, leave it for clean up." His tone not one of aggression or bitterness, just letting her know the reasons. He realized despite everyone's strong military associations, not everyone they were picking up were special forces trained. He began to wonder if he or Garrus should do a twice a week refresher over SOP and communications until everyone was on the same page.

"Shepard, not everyone has our experience with the Thorian or Geth and their usage of bodies as triggers and distractions, we might want to take a day in the next few weeks to get everyone-"

"Everyone on the same page?" Shepard interrupted, looking at the Turian with a smirk.

Seeing the look, Garrus threw out,"Thinking the same thing again?"

"Seriously, is there some Cerberus display on the back of my scalp just displaying my current train of thought?"

Miranda smiled at the thought before replying,"Nope, ran out of money getting the full options package, next time you die though, we'll make sure it gets addressed."

"Full options package?" Shepard threw out teasingly. "Like what options?"

Speaking seriously for a moment, Miranda replied, "Enhanced night vision, neural to nerve interfaces to help with aim and reaction speeds, obviously we buffed the strength a bit." Looking back at Shepard, she added for effect,"The camera and audio receivers were inlaid in subcutaneous implants, so we could avoid having to rely on helmet camera logs."

Not sure if she was joking, Shepard tried to blow off the insecure feeling, but had to ask,"So what, the Illusive Man gets his jollies at seeing me take my morning piss."

"Essentially, Commander, though I imagine much more of his time is spent watching you watch cartoons than focused on your standard bodily functions."

"Not that all of this unnerving the Commander chatter isn't fun, but shouldn't we be trying to catch up to the biotic currently tearing apart the ship before she steals our ride out of here." Garrus looked between the two who'd stopped their back and forth to give annoyed looks at Garrus. "Fine, be that way, let's talk about other things; Miranda, what do you use on your hair? Any tips for my fringe?"

She snorted before waving a hand at Shepard, who humphed before turning back towards their objective.

-.

Jack was getting pissed, again, and while that'd not normally be something worth noting, her reason this time was lack of progress. She'd easily made her way through the adjoining commons areas to reach the last bottleneck before the administrative areas. Thinking to trap the Warden in a reinforced office, she'd been caught out in the open as a strike team had opened up on her from elevated positions along both sides of the room. She'd jumped behind a crate near the entrance, barely making it in time to keep her barrier up, she tried to harry a few with lobbed warps and lifts, but their positioning left her unable to reach them, while every time she exposed herself, she drew the bead of twenty or so assault rifles.

Looking back to see if she could go around, she spotted the group that had been hanging around in the control room coming up behind her. It blocked her escape backwards, and her debris left in her wake kept her from tossing the lot five meters back with a throw. She was trapped and could already envision the warden giving her shackles a couple of prods to shock her before he sent her back to her stasis-hell. She'd begun to glow with rage, about to let off a omni-directional shock wave to give herself a little room, when she noticed her flanking squad wasn't even bothering to aim at her.

Instead, the female in a skin tight suit and a turian with a fucked up face sprinted by her to slide behind cover under one side of the room, their quick peeks to rattle shots off at the other side of the room quickly leaving her left side clear. A large thump sounded out of the crate she'd leaned her head against, the soldier in black having landed in cover with a flourish only a FNG could be stupid enough to play at. Fucking moron actually took off his helmet to look her in the face, his brown eyes seeming to switch between mockery and curiosity a couple times as he looked for any bloody patches dotting her form.

Seeing the biting snarl to her teeth and a small twinge to her eyes that screamed weariness Shepard reached back to his armaments, unclipping his shotgun and passing it over. "Here, never use the bitch anyways, enjoy." Seeing the shock on her face at being given a weapon, he threw off a flippant salute before reseating his helmet and proceeding to sprint down the middle of the room, drawing fire from both sides. He, be a complete fucking moron, wasn't even trying to avoid the hits, just running in a straight line to reach the opposite end of the room to settle into a small grouping of crates. Thinking he'd just run off to let his squad die, Jack did impossible of getting angrier, crossing the divide in the room within a millisecond to reach the other cover, she was suprised to find him peering down the room at his team, murmuring to them in measured calm.

Seeing the convict burst upon him, Shepard was able to avoid flinching like a little girl, his rifle only shifting a few millimeters off target as he glanced at her. Seeing the look on her face put tension on his bowel, but he quickly dismissed that to continue his discussion with his turian partner. "Sight high left first, then odds, I'll take the right and evens." A small click sounded, all the affirmation he needed before starting,"Five, four, three..."

A small biotic field was tossed at the mercs opposing Miranda and Garrus, a moment later the lift field slighly budging the crates behind which the team above were crouched. Seeing the slight movement, Shepard tossed out his own warp, the biotics opposing each other and detonating, crushing one merc as he was pinned against the railing and two more to be flung over the edge. The seven remaining tried to dive into cover again, but were stopped at precision sniper fire quickly took out both men on the ends, before alternating between the targets.

"Pussies." came a mocking comment from Jack as she watched.

Shepard looked over to see the girl eyeing him, "Yeah, they're pretty fucking lame, huh?"

"Not them, you guys, seriously, was that the best you got?" Shepard smirked a little, hidden behind his visor, and waved a have-at-it gesture to the convict, who could finally focus on the group on the walkway above the others. "Tell your buddies they better move."

With that, Shepard relayed the message, a moment later feeling as though he were standing too close to the drive core, the glow of channeled biotic energy lighting the area like a torch, as Jack reached out. The walkway the snipers were hiding on suddenly wretched to the left before dropping a few meters, the mercs momentary weightlessness enough for her to grab the lo in a single lift field in one hand. In the other she twitched a couple of fingers, the movement targeting the merc on the left, his screams as he was jerked lasting a moment before he impacted the side wall of the bay with a thump that was felt through the soles of everyone's boots. His head seemed to pop under the massive loads, his body tumbling down while a small part of his visor seemed to have become embedded in the wall. Seeing her glance over at him, he gave a hurry up gesture while looking bored.

"Fine, it's not like there's ever been a shortage of dumbasses." Jack stated, before lobbing the rest of the group up, then slamming them back down into the twisted walkway, the whole mess collapsing in a meter high pile of debris and fleshy bits.

Shepard, glad that she'd told him to move his people, waved them over before turning to the very tense looking woman next to him, her near bald scalp shining with sweat from the exertion though she had only slightly deepened her breathing. "Very nice, Jack. I bet you're wondering why we decided to let you out."

"Not really."

Looking at her for a moment, thrown a bit by her sudden shift from gleeful carnage to subdued boredom, Shepard tried a different tact. "Well, we're going up against the Collectors, and we'll need someone with your strengths to make it through."

"Whatever, fuck 'tard, you helped, so you live a while," Jack started before turning to the warden's offices,"so long as you keep out of my way, I'll might even hear what you have to say, but not before we find that turian piece of shit and lock him in a stasis cell to waste away eternity."

"Well...what the hell, that bitch was getting on my nerves, too." Looking over at his team, he glanced at both of them, both having made it through unscathed," Miranda, head on back, comm Edi, Mordin, Katsumi, and Grunt, have them start prepping for us to leave, and have the others start pushing a path through whatever guards are left. Me, Garrus, and Jack will wrap up things and be back in twenty. Keep me in the loop if something happens."

"Of course, Shepard."came Miranda's mellow response, probably thinking about the long shower she'd demand after the mission was concluded. Looking back at the warped walkway's remains, Miranda shook her head slightly before marching very calmly though the broken bodies and debris.

"Shepard? Like The Shepard?" came the slightly shocked look from Jack, her response making Shepard grin and Garrus slap his back and he chuckled,"See, I told you we should get a t-shirt or repaint your armor with the word "The" in big white letters. At least it's another fighter and not another Conrad Verner."

"Stow it, Vakarian, you can talk when you own up to that 'Archangel' crap that was so popular."

"Oh, but I couldn't compete with you, Shepard, you even have a doll."

"Action figure, and you're just jealous."

Seeing the two stop to poke fun, Jack just punched the nearest one in the chest, happening to be Garrus, saying,"Quit with the fucking dancing, fuck your girlfriend later, I want to see that bastard chained." before she stalked down the admin hall, Garrus and Shepard shaking their heads at each other before quietly following.


	12. Leaky Boats don't Float

Jack sat in the shuttle on the way to the Cerberus ship she'd seen earlier. Suspended on the docking arm, it'd looked puny and toy-like compared to the blocky prison, but now that the prison resembled more a burning hornet's nest of imploding e-zo cores and warped metal, she could say it was impressive enough in its own right. _Not that that would be enough to save anyone who even looked at her._

Jack glanced at the turian and human as they piloted and joked between each other, mostly ignoring the woman who was obviously much happier sitting in the back seats for a good sulk. The turian had obviously been through a severe accident, the robotic looking replacement flange of his mandible would normally be enough to end a military career for the rigid society, often such people were sent to be technicians and support staff to the Hierarchy's war machine. The fact that this one was still up and running, even more gunning along side a human terrorist group said things were up that might throw the balance of galactic power. "_Or they offered a surprisingly decent dental plan," _Jack quipped to herself, letting her eyes slowly meander back to the black armored soldier carrying more weapons than he even bothered to need, if what he said earlier had been any indication.

His identity had been known before he'd said his name, he being one of the only news items big enough for literally every person in the galaxy to have heard about. Jack imagined the only sentient people not aware of who he was were still pre-FTL civilizations, but they'd be updated once they crept out of their home systems. Commander Shepard, the living legend, he'd busted groups of every species and even tore into Cerberus with gusto.

-.

The last memorial program that'd played in the prison recreation before her permanent lock down had shown a few minutes of his suit logs, his voice gleeful as he'd flung some slavers through a glass window to plummet to their deaths, then sweeping aside the Krogan bodyguards like chaff. In the mix were a few second clips of him wasting white and gold suited soldiers and scientists, their screams eliciting a chuckle heard over the helmet's pickups. As visual porn was a rarity in the pen, and he was a definite improvement to the average convict sharing her air, she'd even spent a few weeks with him as mental stimulus, until a particularly bad shower event was able to push even that small glint of peace beyond her memory. Thus looking at him was both stimulating parts of her that she's though dead, and twinged enough bad memories that he'd best randomly wander a mine field before trying to hit her up.

As the memorial had started up, the whole thing was being blared out by the usual tumult of prisoners insults, curses, and laments of the weak. Thus is would be odd hearing the usually riotous group quiet down, but Karn, the prisoner-head gave a quick bellow of "Shut the fuck up!" as the program had started. Karn was less likely than Jack to let a idiot surviving, though perhaps a little less messily, so the mass of convicts relatively settled to watch the action and few parting words of crew and friends bid farewell to the man. Jack had watched with disinterest, dead was dead and hardly worth paying any attention to anymore, as the stick figures adorning her floors as a child could attest. Still, she'd watched a man of action, his fights shown in multi-angle 3d mesh made from composites of his team's vid and auditory records. He obviously was skilled, his countenance and joking nature easily coming across as he'd used one Krogan as a body shield to absorb a biotic charge from a Asari mercenary only to push his dazed form on top of her to unload on both.

A batarian slaver jumped up as the show concluded, and started shouting that it was good riddance to the universe that such uppity do-gooder was sucking vacuum. Before Jack could throw the guy a few dozen feet for yelling and irritating her, Karn stepped up to directly in front of the now obviously nervous batarian, who started so back up only to be held forward by the crowd. Believe in the batarian or not, no one was about to get in Karn's way. Looking down at the small bug proclaiming Shepard to be better off dead, he glared at him, daring him to utter another word. Sadly for the universe, Batarian's are not born for expression or thought, and are often fly by the seat of irritation and wrath. Standing up straight, he calmly began to repeat his diatribe before a Karn snapped his head forward, headbutting the slaver to the floor. Seeing the guards slowly approaching, slowly enough to allow a little more excitement before they'd have to separate the convicts, Karn acted decisively, and tore his lower jaw off. Seeing the blood and hearing the snap, the guards immediately lost any lackadaisical stride they'd been selling and straight sprinted over, weapons up and ready only to be too late.

The convict gurgled his last few breaths as blood loss, shock, and agony forced him into a state of apathy, he mearly eyed the Krogan as if to ask, "Why?". Looking down and feeling no need to explain to the soon to be stain, he looked about at the convicts and guards eyeing him warily. "I don't care if he fucked your mother and sister together at gun point, anyone says anything about Shepard, I'll tear their arms and legs off and see if I can swap them before you bleed out." Hearing this, the convicts slowly backed up as the guards surrounded the now sedate Krogan. Quietly, to himself, he said, "He's the battlemaster of my battlemaster, and will be honored, even here."

Jack had only seen him live up to his threat once, with a new guy who probably never heard the unspoken rule, and since Karn had been true to his word, no one had nothing but the kindest things to say about the hero. Despite her attempts to learn why the Krogan actually respected someone, a human at that, the truth never came out.

-.

She imagined Karn, since he'd been scheduled to be released back to Tuchanka a couple days after her isolation, would likely have given half his quad to ride with the former Spectre, Jack couldn't help but wonder what would put so many different species loyalty at his demand.

AN: Still working on it and trying to get time to add to the story as planned. Keep checking back.


	13. The day the world ended

AN: Enough setup and filler, let's get to the story!

Shepard stood at the rear end of the shuttle, standing rigidly still as he focused all the anger and frustration into standing perfectly still rather than blowing the small compartment into spinning shards of metal. His efforts were minimally effective as the wall he'd leaned against earlier had unexpectedly started to sag, forcing him to remain motionless and a safe arm's length from the wall.

He tried mantras and chants and baseball scores, the later of which was the only item not made up on the spot, even visualized all his female crew members naked in a effort to shake himself loose, only to gasp in annoyance as his mind's eye flickered over one bald tattooed hellion staring at him angrily. The same form who now was laid out in the floor of the shuttle as they raced against theoretical maximum speeds and waived safety requirements demanding a full deceleration before sliding into the Normandy's shuttle bay. The vessel tried to bleed the last of it's momentum with a sustained reverse thrust, barely keeping the belly from leaving deep furrows in the deck plating as it settled with a thump felt through out the ship.

Opening the hatch, Shepard was slightly eased to the side by a frantic Chakwas who slapped a biotic neutralizer collar on the convict before pulling in the stretcher to rush the unconscious biotic to the med bay. The salarian doctor squeezed past the motionless Shepard, calling out as he moved, "Must quickly stabilize and evaluate, limited resources in shuttle bay requires egress, please move."

At this, Shepard stepped off the shuttle and waited at the hatch, watching the two professionals work to strap the patient down and in a impressive feat of strength and dexterity, both worked in perfect unison to elevate and rotate the patient to exit the shuttle without once needing to look where they were going or speaking a word between them. In less than a minute after landing, they'd maneuvered the stretcher out of the shuttle and were on their way to the crew deck, barely pausing to declare the med area off limits until the subject was stable.

"Until the Subject was stable," Shepard reflected over in his head, his mind automatically capitalizing the word, pulling memories of a few hours ago as they'd wandered the small eclipse base; her, Garrus, and himself making fun of the pathetic soldiers facing them as they'd easily taken out the competition, even going so far start placing wagers on the final area's complement. After taking out the two mechs and the small contingent of guards, they approached a small access shaft cut in the wall.

-.

"Okay, double or nothing, asari swimsuit models, held hostage by indoctrinated hanar." A answering snort from Jack made him smirk as Garrus warbled a turian chuckle,

"Fine, we find that somewhere on this base, you don't have to calibrate the main gun, but if you lose, you get to also help Miranda file the operations reports."

Hearing this threw Shepard's stride for a step, his helmeted head tilting for a millisecond before he asked, "For how long?"

"Rest of the trip." Hearing this, Shepard let a small curse slip over the comms, before he kicked at the wall in annoyance.

"Screw that, I'll be over later tonight to do my dues, just don't think I've forgotten."

Turning back, he say Garrus jerk both hands upward in a football goal gesture as Jack let out a, "Fucking know it all turians," before waving her omni in his direction to pass along his winnings.

'What, what?" Shepard could see Garrus fighting the good fight against his normal response, be was losing it, before guffaws began to echo the small room.

"He bet me he could get you to calibrate his gun for him with a threat of Cerberus bitch-itude. I seriously thought those double d's would make you stupid and you'd jump at the chance to _do reports_"

Jack's usage of his personal nickname for Miranda brought a smile to his lips as he replied, "Never bet against Garrus when it comes to my social life, the guy's freaking prophetic. Seriously, what were the odds he'd be right about Sha'ira inviting me up and then about her not even bothering to bill me? Eighty to one? Higher?"

Jack's widening eyes at the comment made Shepard a little embarrassed, "What, too low?" The incredulous look intensified. "Way, way too low?"

"She _asked_ for you, and then you never even got a bill?"

"Yeah, and I can't get a straight answer out of anyone as to how much she charges, only that it's a little more than a happy meal."Jack felt a little discomfited at the notion of the asari icon alone with Shepard for a minute, but the idea that she hadn't billed him the equivalent of a new space ship for the pleasure was a little impressive.

"Don't worry about it, she probably just felt a huge wave of pity at seeing your stupid face." At this Garrus slapped Shepard on the shoulder and pointed at his "index" talon, the turian gesture of "right on point".

The group slightly settled as they finally reached the last security door, Garrus setting up the omni tool to link while the other two just watched in calm silence. A few moments later, the door slid aside to reveal a small cubbyhole in the rock, the only details in the room other than the roughened rock was a slightly glowing green console.

To Shepard, there was a moment of disconnect upon seeing the device, his eyes glazing slightly as he saw flashes of the prothean vision and the oncoming swarm of reapers tearing through orange skies like meteorites. His distraction didn't stop Jack who stepped forward to peer at the device. His face jerked for a second before he came back to the present and saw Jack take another step towards the console.

"Jack, no, wait!" Hearing him and seeing Garrus look up from his omni tools scans with surprise, she'd barely begun to turn way when she felt a force along her spine seem to press down on her, folding her in a small bunched ball as lightning bursts in her mind illuminated the impressed horrific visions of extinction across a galaxy. The screams of billions began to wail in her mind, everyone trying to force across time and language the warning of doom.

Shepard saw her freeze a millisecond before the green glow of the console surrounded Jack, the beacon this time forcing it's recipient down to the ground, splayed like a corpse as the visions began to pour in . In three seconds, the glow subsided, the convict's face a blank slate as she lay still for a moment. Then she opened her eyes, eyes covered in a biotic haze as she stared unseeing at the walls, her mind's eye focused on the visions.

She started to scream and suddenly was lifted by a small biotic field before slamming against the ceiling, her impact warping the rock above, starting a small cascade of falling rocks that the remainder of the team was forced to avoid while Jack flailed against the ceiling. A sharp snap from her arm as she'd impacted told Shepard she'd broken at least her arm in the massive collision, likely several ribs and her fractured skull. Another spark of power flung her against the side wall, the wall opposite her exploding out to reveal the base commissary. She was anchored to the side wall, her left arm and right leg splayed against the rock, her right arm and left leg dangling with obvious break making her shattered limbs seem insect-like in their unusual geometry.

"Jack, stop, wake the fuck up!" Shepard yelled to no effect, Still she screamed, her voice failing to keep up with the volume, her lungs unable to draw enough air to match the wail in her head. On and on it went, seeming a eternity to Jack, but closer to thirty seconds before Shepard relented and cast a stasis on Jack. Still her arcs of uncontrolled biotics fought his hold, his hand going to his head to massage his temple and biotic arcs flowing along his skin as he fought her chaotic flow of power. He gestured for Garrus to quickly grab their fellow soldier before they both rushed to the shuttle, Shepard hand on Garrus' back to keep himself in track as he focused on keeping Jack immobile.

Seeing Shepard fully taxed with keeping Jack from either tearing herself or them apart, Garrus called over the line to the Normandy. "Normandy, this is shuttle one on emergency approach, Jack has been incapacitated by a beacon. Have Chakwas in the bay and be ready with whatever biotic suppressants she's got, Shepard currently has the tiger by the leash but it doesn't look good.

Looking back, he could see his friend punch the small arms locker near the hatch, his current biotic use in stabilizing Jack lending unplanned strength to his blow and rocking the entire shuttle in a hiccup. Seeing his shocked face and chagrin for a moment, before his eyes rested again on the frail looking human, Garrus went back to monitoring time estimates and overriding the automatic safeties to allow them to rush right inside.

AN: So, been trying to do the whole "start a new paragraph when switching speakers" thing, and I gotta say the large amount of white space makes it look like a 3rd grader essay trying to fill a page. Guess I'm just used to reading novels and such where half a page being blank would be pretty silly. Hope it helps; anyways, if there's any other grammatical or formatting fixes that'd make this easier to read, let me know.


End file.
